The Adventures of Lost Girl, Darth Mousse, and
by Hunter Kid
Summary: Ranma, Ryoga, and Mousse go all the way to Jusenkyo to try to cure themselves, but it doesn't turn out quite as planned...
1. It Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time

After finally mustering the will, if not necessarily the means, to make the long return journey to Jusenkyo, Ranma, Ryoga, and Mousse set off from Nerima with high hearts at precisely noon on a warm, clear summer day.

Mousse couldn't stop grinning. "Finally! To be cured of my duck form!" Visions of happiness floated through his mind, mostly in the form of a (very blurry) blue-haired girl. "Shampoo! When I come back, we can be married at last!"

Ranma couldn't stop grinning. "Finally! To be a whole man again!" Visions of happiness floated through his mind, mostly involving him never growing breasts ever again.

Ryoga scowled, looking at the sky. "Feels like it's going to rain."

Ranma grinned at him. "C'mon, Ryoga, there's not a cloud in the sky!"

Ten minutes later, it started raining.

The sight of a duck, a pig, and a coarsely winsome redheaded girl swimming across the East China Sea would have made a nice capstone of absurdity for three absurd lives, but as it happened, the luxury cruise ship _Mermaid's Dream_ was seeking waiters for its onboard four-star restaurant. Ranma was ideally suited to the job – female, when the situation required it, strikingly pretty, and possessed of a magnetic charisma that assured her excellent tips – and Mousse had long experience on his side. Ryoga was ideally _un_suited to the job, given his propensity to get lost walking from one table to another and complete inability to finish a sentence in front of a female customer.

They disembarked at Shanghai, thanking their manager gleefully, who cursed them all roundly for walking out on their agreed three-month-minimum employment contract, and made their way slowly inland.

You hear about China's big cities a lot in the news, Beijing and Shanghai and the like, but you never hear anything about the ridiculously huge landmass to the west of the highly populated eastern lowlands. There's not a lot there that would interest the modern world, really – mostly just farm after farm after farm, and after so many hundreds of miles of that, there isn't a whole lot of anything.

After hundreds more miles of a whole lot of nothing in particular, there's the Qinghai province, endless mountain ranges, ruggedly beautiful and wild. And smack in the middle of nowhere, there it is.

You can only travel by train so far west, before civilization runs dry and all you've got are your own legs. So the unlikely trio covered the first leg of the journey west very rapidly, and the second, the ascent into the mountains, with agonizing slowness. Mousse knew the way, though, and week after week they followed his lead, until one clear, cold morning, they found it.

Ranma stared across the narrow valley, and said it first: "Jusenkyo..."

Ryoga grinned. "Sort of feels like coming home at last, eh, Ranma?"

The pools appeared to have returned to their normal state, after having been flooded during their last, ill-fated visit to this place. They were still and tranquil in the early morning; beautiful, really. Would have made a fantastic postcard.

The Guide ran out to them hastily, pulling his red-star Chairman Mao hat on as he called out something in Chinese.

Ranma, who could not speak a word of Chinese, looked on curiously as Ryoga, who spoke bits and pieces of Chinese, took on a vague expression of dismay, while Mousse, who was of course fluent, looked like he was trying very hard not to cry.

Not a good sign.

"Hi," the Guide greeted him cheerfully. "I remember you, sir. You and your father came here, didn't speak any Chinese at all, got yourselves cursed, then ran off before I could tell you how to cure yourselves."

"Eh...yeah, that's right," Ranma said, looking with some concern at the completely devastated forms of his two companions. The Guide's Japanese seemed to have improved remarkably since his last visit. Steeling himself, he asked: "So...bad news, huh?"

"Yes, some bad news, I'm afraid, sir," the Guide replied, with that odd heaviness in his voice that, combined with the sobbing, cursing figures of Ryoga and Mousse, somehow told Ranma that he probably wasn't getting cured today after all. "The springs only look like they're back to normal. They're still all mixed up from the battle that _you_ conducted here." He seemed sort of offended. "Tourism has basically stopped, now. Not that many tourists ever came here, as we are located smack in the middle of East Bumblefuck, China, but our last visitor who came jumped in the Spring of Drowned Tiger and came out with a tiger's legs, a walrus's head, and the body of a giant earthworm. Talk about bad press." He sighed. "Well, I couldn't cure him and I can't cure you, so don't ask. There's a few different kinds of the original spring water we had set aside, and Spring of Drowned Man was, I am sorry to say, not among them."

Ranma thought about that for a minute, then joined in the sobbing and cursing.

* * *

The Guide did, as a sort of consolation prize, invite them into his hut for dinner. The three of them sat with their heads down on the table, completely drained.

"Life is so unfair," Ryoga moaned, going through alternating spasms of fury and despair. He clenched his fist. "Cursed to turn into a _pig_ for the rest of my life! AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHH!" he snarled, shaking with hatred. "You guys don't have it half so bad as me! A duck, a girl? Feh! How gladly would I take either of your 'curses!'"

"You know, sirs," the Guide interjected, probably, more than anything else, attempting to diffuse Ryoga's tantrum, "we do have both Spring of Drowned Duck and Spring of Drowned Girl water in casks. A lot of it, actually. The Amazon tribe gets us to send them a cask of Drowned Girl water every year, for the fools from their village who used to train here and get cursed on accident. And the local villagers like to dunk ants and roaches and other things in the Spring of Drowned Duck, so we send them shipments every year. They say it tastes just like regular duck. This is going to be the last year they're going out, of course, but they're still here for now. We've got stores of pretty much anything that makes edible meat, actually. Spring of Drowned Cow, Water Buffalo, Pig, Dog, you name it..."

"Dog?" Ranma repeated, with some distaste.

Mousse considered that. "What else do you have set aside?"

The Guide shrugged. "Not much, sir, I'm sorry to say. Some government scientists wanted some samples of some of the personality-modifying springs, so I've got a couple of those. Spring of Drowned Asshole, which actually wasn't a very tragic story, because I understand he deserved it, Spring of Drowned Valley Girl, ditto, Spring of Drowned Japanese Tomboy..." He saw the three of them staring at him intently, then added, "The only male spring water we have is the Asshole water, in case you were wondering..."

Ryoga smiled at Ranma. "Hey, you're an asshole anyway. Perfect choice."

"What-!"

The Guide rooted through a side room for a moment, then pulled out a large thermos. "Hmm, well, if you want, this is all the Asshole water I've got left." He tossed the thermos to Ranma. "Help yourself. For what it's worth, I understand that this water takes your current level of Assholeness and multiplies it by a factor of approximately 10,000."

Ranma looked at it. "Well...it probably _would_ be better than turning into a girl..."

Ryoga and Mousse exchanged looks. Ryoga considered the idea of having his personality warped to be even more disturbing, if that was possible, than changing into a pig.

"Oh! You know what," the Guide said, pulling out another thermos. "I forgot all about this. I had this life-sized Darth Vader poster, sunk into one of the pools a couple of years back. Very tragic story. One of our honored guests fall into the pool last year, became convinced he was Darth Vader and tried to destroy me." He tossed the thermos to Mousse, who was looking at it with mixture of shock and fear.

"Spring of Drowned...Life-Size Darth Vader Poster?" Mousse murmured, awed. "How would that even work?"

The Guide shrugged. "No idea, sir. So, feel free to use any of the water you want. If you'd like to change your curse, this is probably going to be your last chance to do it."

They were about ten miles from Jusenkyo when it started raining. "Shit," said a pretty girl with a bandanna in her hair.

"I find your foul language disturbing," rumbled James Earl Jones's voice. Darth Mousse clenched his fist and glowered malevolently at the girl. "Do not make me destroy you, princess."

"Man, fuck this fucking stupid ass shit," whined some asshole. "Goddammit. I gotta walk all the way back to fucking Japan with you two fucking idiots. All fucking raining and shit. Goddammit!"

* * *

RANDOM FANDOM is proud to present:

THE ADVENTURES OF LOST GIRL, DARTH MOUSSE, AND SOME ASSHOLE

(a Ranma 1/2 fanfic)

by

Hunter Kid

* * *

Part 1: "It Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time"

They did, at some length, eventually make it back to Nerima. The three of them had intended to go to Ucchan's to celebrate their return and moderately-less-miserable situations with some (hopefully free) okonomiyaki, but, unfortunately, as they strode down a street less than a block away from Ukyou's shop, it began to rain.

This worked against them in several ways. First and foremost, however, was that Ranma the Asshole was always actively working against whatever goal they had been seeking, and Darth Mousse was primarily interested in converting people to the Dark Side, which left Ryoga to lead the trio around, and, sadly, being female did not improve Ryoga's sense of direction.

So, within short order, they got lost. Shampoo, bravely armed with only an umbrella, found them.

"Ranma!" she greeted him happily. "I look all over for you! Where you been for past eight months?"

"Shampoo-" Ryoga tried to interject, weakly, knowing her attempt avert catastrophe would be in vain.

"Hey, what's up, hot stuff," Ranma the Asshole drawled, sidling up to Shampoo with a sleazy grin. "What do you say we ditch these two losers and head on back to my place..."

"It is _you_ who I have searched for all this time," Darth Mousse declared, his face a mask of evil fury. He thrust a finger in her direction. "Shampoo! The time has come for you to embrace the _Dark Side_ of the Force!"

"Ignore them," Ryoga suggested helpfully. Everyone ignored her, instead. "They're, uh, drunk. As usual."

"Ranma!" Shampoo gushed. "You want be with Shampoo, yes, is true?"

Ranma smirked as he took a long, long look at Shampoo's entire body. It was one of those ridiculously blatant stare-at-you-up-and-down-and-up-and-down looks that only a true asshole would dare attempt. Shampoo, of course, was completely thrilled by it. "Ohhh yeah," Ranma said, grinning toothily.

Darth Mousse scowled at them. "Do not make me destroy you, you foolish asshole," he grated evilly, clenching his fists. "Remove yourself from the woman. This one is _mine_."

Ranma just laughed. Mousse removed a gatling gun from his robes. "I'll mow you down like you were not even there," he rumbled. Evilly.

Ryoga sighed, walked up behind the posturing Darth Mousse and kicked him under a nearby overhang, where his head slammed into a wall, promptly knocking him out, then threw an open thermos of hot water after him.

Ranma glowered at her. "Stay the fuck away from me, lost girl! I'm fixin' to get some, and you better not fuckin' interfere-" Another open thermos hit him in the head, drenching him with scalding water. "Yaaaah!" he looked down at himself in horror, and shuddered away from Shampoo's adoring gaze. "I-I-I..."

And then the rain stopped.

Ranma fled in terror, with Shampoo hot on his heels.

Ryoga, now bereft of any hot water to change herself back, scooped up the unconscious Mousse and stomped off in search of the elusive Ucchan's.

* * *

Ukyou looked up. A customer walked in, which was unusual in itself for the dead period between lunch and dinner. Also unusual was that the customer had Mousse's unconscious form draped unceremoniously over her shoulder. She dumped him into one of the booths. He sprawled, half off of the seat, drooling on himself.

Well, that certainly was not going to be good for business.

The girl marched up to her and grinned. "Hello Ukyou!"

"Um...hi," she greeted the customer, uncertainly.

"It's me, Ryoga!" the girl announced.

Ukyou stared. "You're...wait...what?" Does...not...compute...

"Ryoga!" the girl affirmed cheerfully. She was obviously getting a kick out of this. "Yeah, I'm a girl now."

They sat down, and Ryoga told the story, munching on some (hopefully free) okonomiyaki. Ukyou poured hot water on her head and watched with great interest as Ryoga's gender changed. When Ryoga was finished explaining, Ukyou nodded sadly.

"So you guys are not cured," she said, sighing. "I'm sorry."

Ryoga shrugged. "Actually, I'm ok with it. Ranma was always whining about his misery, but...you know compared to being a pig, I have to admit, turning into a girl is not that bad."

"You turned into a pig before?" Ukyou asked curiously. Two couples walked into the restaurant, but immediately left again when they saw Mousse's unconscious figure, his head dangling off the edge of the bench.

"Eh...yes." Ryoga sweated. "A pig. But! No longer." He coughed nervously. "Anyway, so we decided beforehand that we would take samples of some of the different spring waters that the Guide had, in case we decided that we didn't like our current curses."

Ukyou raised an eyebrow. "So you're carrying cursed water around in that backpack?"

"Yes. Not that much, though. Only about ten milliliters is required to curse you, according to the Guide."

She looked at his backpack, her curiosity piqued. "So...what water did you bring back?"

"Oh, let's see here..." He began to rummage through his oversized travel backpack. "There weren't too many that seemed like they might be useful, really. Mostly farm animals. Here's Spring of Drowned Eagle. Might be interesting. Drowned Water Buffalo. Not too promising. Um, here's Drowned Valley Girl, I don't know why we even packed that." He rummaged around some more. "I thought we packed the three we used on ourselves, but I can't seem to find them..." He picked one vial out from the bottom of his pack and set it on the counter. "Let's see, this is the one that didn't have a label, the Guide said he thought it was Spring of Drowned Gangsta."

"Drowned Valley Girl? Drowned Gangsta?" Ukyou repeated. "How can these possibly be real?"

Before Ryoga could respond, Ranma jogged in rapidly, sat down, and grinned at Ukyou. "Hi Ucchan!" He kept on grinning, obviously expecting free food to materialize in front of him.

"So, managed to lose her, Ranma?" Ryoga asked, mildly.

"Yeah, finally," Ranma responded, shuddering. "I'm not sure what I said to her while I was an asshole...but...man. I'm startin' to really question this whole asshole thing." He shot a sideways look at Mousse's prone form. "I think we really ought to do something about Darth Mousse there, too. He's really startin' t'get on my nerves."

Ukyou picked up the vial of Drowned Gangsta water at peered through it. "Well, it sounds like you've got quite a selection here."

"Yeah, you want to try something different, Ranma?" Ryoga asked him, rooting through his pack, which appeared to be filled almost exclusively with empty hot-water thermoses. "You could try Drowned Ox. Or Drowned Boar. Or Drowned Zealot. Not sure what that one is. Guide said it wouldn't be what we expected, whatever that means. Or..." He continued to root around.

Ranma shook his head. "Nah, I'm still thinkin' about it. We oughtta do Mousse right now, though, while he's knocked out..."

Ryoga nodded. "Yeah."

Ukyou glared at them. "You guys! You can't make that kind of a decision for him!"

Ranma looked at her solemnly. "Ukyou...if you had been through the hell we've been through with this guy for the past six months, you would understand." He began to look through Ryoga's pack. "Let's see here..."

Mousse appeared behind him. "Ukyou...if you would be so kind, could I have a glass of water?"

Ukyou handed him one, which he promptly dumped on himself.

"You see what I mean?" Ranma hissed.

Ryoga nodded, grinding his teeth together. "He _likes_ being Darth Mousse. He tries to be Darth Mousse _all the time_."

Darth Mousse sat down at the counter and stared at Ukyou malevolently. "Bring me a beer," he thundered. "IMMEDIATELY!"

She sighed. "Mousse, you're sixteen. You know I can't serve you beer."

Mousse stood up, in a black fury. "DO NOT TRIFLE WITH ME, WOMAN. BRING ME A BEER IMMEDIATELY OR I WILL BE FORCED TO DESTROY YOU."

"Okay, I'm starting to see your point, Ranma," Ukyou conceded, upending a cup of hot water on Mousse's head.

"No!" Mousse wailed. "Force...power...gone...!"

"Shaddap," Ranma growled, punching him roughly. He crashed into Ryoga, who flailed his arms wildly to keep his balance. One of his hands smacked Drowned Gangsta water cleanly off the counter. The vial hit Ukyou in the forehead and shattered.

The three of them stared in horror. "Oh man...Ryoga, you idiot, you just cursed Ucchan!" Ranma shouted, jumping out of his seat and searching through Ryoga's pack. "Help me find the Drowned Girl water!"

"It...it wasn't my fault!" Ryoga protested, putting his arms up in front of him. "This idiot bumped into me! I-"

"Man..." said a voice that was recognizably Ukyou's, yet completely different, "y'all need to quit arguin' and shit befo' I bust some _caps_ up in here!"

Ryoga and Mousse just stared at her.

"Ryoga! Ryoga!" Ranma was sounding more and more alarmed. "I'm not seeing the Drowned Girl water! Where _is it_, Ryoga?" He grabbed hold of Ryoga's collar. "You _did_ remember to pack it, didn't you, Ryoga?"

"What in the _hell_ kinda gay fuckin' clothes am I wearin' here, dogg?" Ukyou demanded of nobody in particular. "Purple tights and a big-ass _spatula_? Oh, _hell_ naw!"

Mousse hurriedly poured a cup of hot water on her head.

Ukyou swayed a bit, obviously unnerved. "Oh, man...that was weird..."

Ranma looked stricken. "Ryoga...the Drowned Girl water isn't here."

Ryoga growled at him. "How is that _my_ fault? You said _you_ put the three waters we got cursed with in the pack!"

"No, I didn't, _you_ did!"

"You did!"

Ukyou sighed, irritated. "Okay, obviously neither of you did. So...what do I do now?"

Ranma and Ryoga exchanged a look. "Well...ah..." Ranma swallowed nervously.

She favored him with a level stare. "You had better not be telling me that I will turn into a 'gangsta' for the rest of my life when splashed with cold water because _you idiots_ forgot to pack the Drowned Girl water."

"That is _precisely_ what they're telling you," Mousse said clinically. Ukyou slammed him into the wall with her big-ass spatula.

"No no! No no!" Ranma said quickly, eyeing the spatula nervously. Mousse peeled himself slowly off the wall. "Look! We've got this great selection of curses you can choose from, Ucchan!"

Ryoga nodded. "Yes, yes! Look, you could be a...an ox! Or a boar! Or an eagle! Or a...zealot!"

Ranma looked at the vial quizzically. "What _is_ a zealot, anyway?"

Ukyou growled and snatched the vial from his hands. "A zealot is someone who's really passionate about something. That doesn't sound that bad." She thought for a moment, then uncorked the vial and empted it on herself.

For a second nothing happened.

"Uh...Ukyou, do you feel any differ..." Ranma began, as Ukyou suddenly transformed into a nine-foot-tall vaguely humanoid monster with glowing gold eyes, bluish-green-gold skin, and no nose or mouth whatsoever. She was wearing a futuristic suit of faintly glowing armor.

"MY LIFE FOR AIUR!" Ukyou roared, two-foot-long glowing blades extending from the gauntlets of her armor. Since she had no mouth, it was not clear exactly where her voice was emanating from, but they noticed that her eyes seemed to glow more when she spoke.

Ranma stared. "Wha...what in the world..."

Ukyou shook her head, confused, and stared down at herself. "Wow...sorry, guys." The nine-foot-tall alien monster looked faintly ridiculous as it adopted an embarrassed posture. The glowing blades disappeared. "I just got the weirdest urge to yell that all of a sudden."

Three customers walked in, stopped, and stared.

"Welcome to Ucchan's!" Ukyou sort of bellowed. "Please, sit anywhere you like!"

The customers fled in terror.

* * *

Akane wasn't exactly happy that Ranma had opted to visit Ucchan's before returning to the Tendo household, but her curiosity overwhelmed her anger.

"So," she said, faintly irritated, when Ranma returned later that evening, "how have the last eight months been for you, Ranma?"

Ranma told her.

Akane couldn't help but laugh. "So you basically turn into yourself when splashed with cold water, huh?" Ranma glared at her. "Why were you guys gone for so long, anyway? I was really worried about you! You should have let me come!"

"Well, you know, the trip there didn't take all that long. Couple of months. But on the way back, it would rain sometimes, and we wouldn't have any water with us, so me and Mousse would sort of lose it and Ryoga would have to lead the three of us. And with his sense of direction..."

"My sense of direction," Ryoga said calmly, sitting down next to Ranma, "wouldn't have been a problem if you and Mousse did not insist on having such idiotic curses."

Akane looked at him strangely. "Say, Ryoga, that's something I've been meaning to ask you... I don't understand why you went with Ranma and Mousse to Jusenkyo! Ranma just told me that you chose to be cursed with the Spring of Drowned Girl..."

Ranma grinned at him. "Yeah, you pig, certainly baffled me, too. Care to explain?"

Ryoga looked from Ranma to Akane nervously. "I...I...I had a...I had to..." He licked his lips, then his arm started to shake in anger. "Ranma..." he growled, his nervousness turning to fury. "You..."

"Ryoga, did you..." Akane continued to stare at him. "Don't tell me you..."

Ryoga closed his eyes in anguish. No! No! She couldn't have found out! Not now, not when he was finally able to move on with his life!

"...just wanted to be a girl?" she finshed.

Ryoga blinked. "I...uh..." He thought about that for a second. If anything, this was an even more disastrous assumption for her to make! Must...think of...excuse...!

Ukyou slipped in next to Ranma, to Akane's obvious annoyance. "No, you said you had a curse before, didn't you, Ryoga?"

Akane raised her eyebrows. "Really, Ryoga? I didn't know you were cursed before. What did you turn into?"

"I...I..." Ryoga stammered in agony, as his world shattered around him. Suddenly a light dawned in his eyes. "I turned into an asshole!"

Ranma put his hand over his eyes and groaned. Ukyou looked at him strangely, but refrained from commenting on this obvious lie.

"Yes, an asshole! Just like Ranma does now!" He laughed nervously. "Because...and...and that's why I was always trying to fight Ranma before! Because I was in asshole form! Look how well me and Ranma get along now that I'm normal again!"

Ranma stared at him flatly. "Oh yeah, we're regular pals, now that Ryoga is cured of his _horrible curse_."

Akane giggled. "So, you picked up Ryoga's curse, and Ryoga picked up yours? What does your girl side look like, Ryoga?"

Ranma threw a cup of water at him. "Like that."

"Ranma..." Ryoga growled at him in a suddenly higher-pitched voice. She threw her own cup of water at Ranma. "Why are you such an asshole?"

Akane nodded. "I see...you actually look a lot like Ranma used to."

"Feh!" Ryoga snorted, glaring at Ranma. "I'm vastly cuter."

Ranma chuckled. "You would be proud of that, wouldn't you, you cross-dressing fuck," he mocked, smirking. "I should fucking beat your candy ass down right now."

Ryoga scowled at him. "Don't tempt me, Ranma."

Ukyou sighed. "Man, you guys were not kidding about the asshole thing."

Ranma stood up, still chuckling. "Bring it on, bitch," he sneered, falling into a fighting stance.

"Feh." Ryoga faced him, a haugthy expression on her face. She dropped her pack to the ground. "Your funeral."

"You guys..." Akane began to protest.

Ranma vanished, and Ryoga felt a series of unbelievably powerful punches connect all up and down her back. She groaned, stumbled forward, then whipped around, confused, looking for Ranma. He was standing about six feet behind her, smirking.

Ryoga growled, "What on Earth..."

Akane gasped. "The White Snake Venom Reliable Fist! The technique that Genma and Ranma said was so lethal that it had to be sealed up forever and forgotten! I can't believe..." She pointed an accusatory finger at Ranma's snickering form. "I can't believe you would use that against _Ryoga_! What an _asshole_!"

Ranma laughed and made an obscene gesture. Once again he vanished, and slammed a punishing volley of punches into Ryoga's unprotected back. She collapsed to the ground, breathing hard.

She grunted in pain, pulling herself to her knees. _I can't lose to Ranma like this!_ she thought, clenching her fists. _Akane is right there, watching us, I can't lose to Ranma in front of Akane...!_ She stared at Ranma, waited for him to assume the same stance again...

"SHISHI-"

Her fighting spirit burned in her chest, and she crossed her arms before her. She roared. Ranma vanished.

"HOUKOUDAN!"

The kinetic blast took the invisible Ranma squarely in the chest and sent him soaring backward, through a pitcher of ice-cold water, which thoroughly drenched Akane and Ukyou. He did a half-somersault in midair and slammed head-first into the wall, crashed to the ground, then immediately bounced back to his feet and charged at Ryoga, spewing obscenities.

"Stop fighting!" Akane shouted, pushing her soaked hair back from her forehead. "Ranma! Ryoga! What is wrong with you two?"

"I LONG FOR COMBAT!" Ukyou the Zealot declared, glowing psi blades descending with a soft hum from her gauntlets.

Akane stared. "U...Ukyou? What...?"

The nine-foot-tall armored monster leapt straight at Ryoga, moving so fast that she didn't even have time to think before she was thoroughly pummeled by her psi blades. Ukyou's eerily glowing eyes burned with battle-lust as she picked up the weakly resisting human before her and threw her across the yard like a rag doll. She landed on the table in front of Akane, and spun to the side just quickly enough to avoid a crushing axe kick from Ranma.

"Akane?" Ryoga said calmly, facing the asshole and the zealot from hell, a thin trickle of blood running from her mouth. Akane looked like she was sort of in shock. "Akane!"

Akane looked at her with a somewhat dazed expression.

"Reach into my pack. There's a few thermoses in there filled with hot water. Hand me one."

Ukyou the Zealot stared at Ryoga for a moment, her eyes burning with an implacable fury, then leapt at her.

Ranma grinned and crossed his arms in front of his chest. The air shimmered in front of him. "MOKO TAKABISHA!"

He was aiming for Akane's arm, which was holding Ryoga's pack, but he had just the wrong timing, so the kinetic blast crashed into Ukyou as she flew through the air, sending her crashing into Ryoga, sending them both crashing into Akane. All three of them went down in a shouting pile of flailing limbs.

Ukyou pulled herself up, first. She was still in zealot form, but seemed to have regained her senses. "Ran-chan..." Her eyes glowed with anger. "You just attacked me, Ran-chan." She stared at him for a moment, then brandished her psi blades. "I'm going to have to kill you now, FOR ADUN-"

Ryoga pulled herself up, second, and emptied a thermos on Ukyou's head.

Akane got up last, and giggled. "Like, ohmygawd!" she exclaimed to no one in particular, flipping her hair ditzily. "Like, what's going on?"

Ukyou ran a hand through her hair. "Ryoga...tell me again...why did you guys think it would be a good idea to bring cursed water back from China?"

Ryoga chuckled nervously. "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time..."

Ranma smiled at them maliciously, then attacked.

* * *

By the time they had subdued and de-assholized Ranma, which took the better part of two hours, since Ranma could be quite elusive when he wanted to be, the three of them sat exhausted in the Tendo yard.

"Okay," Ryoga grumbled, looking sourly at Ranma. "We. Are. Changing. Your. Curse. I don't care what you think. There's no way I'm putting up with Asshole Ranma any more."

Ukyou nodded. "I agree, Ran-chan. There's just no way. Anything would be better than the Asshole. I'd prefer you turned into a hydralisk that was about to feast on the remains of my dead comrades than the Asshole."

Ryoga gave her a sideways glance. "What...?"

"But what other curse am I supposed to use?" Ranma protested.

"_Any_ other curse," Ryoga said emphatically.

"Also," Ukyou noted, sighing, "Akane got cursed, and is now missing."

Ryoga looked around in alarm. "WHAT?" He silently cursed himself. "How could I not have noticed that Akane was gone? Where did she go?"

"She said she was, like, totally going shopping, like, fer shure," Ukyou told him flatly.

Ranma leapt to his feet. "We have to go find her!"

And then it started raining.


	2. Your Hell Is My Hell

Part 2: Your Hell Is My Hell

Tatewaki Kuno was returning from his daily smiting of the other members of Furinkan High School's kendo team. He was in good spirits despite the light rain, and thinking about stopping for a watermelon or five. Ever since that vile sorcerer Saotome and his sinister compatriots had fled the city eight months ago, Kuno had returned to his former, proper domination of the high school. The pigtailed girl had unaccountably vanished, as well, but Kuno was sufficiently fickle that his obsession with her shifted over to Akane Tendo within the space of two days.

Akane Tendo, that vision of loveliness and strength, still played coy with him yet, but he knew he would have her in the end.

He lifted his eyes, and, as if summoned by his desperate longing for her, he beheld Akane, walking down the street toward him, a happy smile on her face.

"Akane Tendo!" he greeted her, trying without much success to control his exuberance at seeing her again. He broke into a gleeful run. "I WOULD DATE WITH YOU, AKANE TENDO!"

Akane's eyes sparkled when she looked at him. "Oh, like, hey, Kuno!" she called out, giggling. "Ohmygawd, you look, like, _totally_ hot in that skirt!"

Kuno coughed. "It is a hakama, I would have you know."

She rolled her eyes. "Like, what_ever_!" She twirled her hair, smiling at him vacantly. "So, like, you said you want to date me?"

He gloated as he looked at her, a confident playboy's smile breaking out on his face. At last! "Heh. It would be my great honor to date you, Akane Ten-!"

Ranma landed on his head, sending him toppling face-first onto the concrete. "What's up, fuckface?" the vile sorcerer greeted him, a sinister smile on his evil features.

Kuno climbed to his feet with a huff, staring arrogantly down at the shorter boy. "Ranma Saotome," he said, drawing out the name like a curse. "I see you have dared to return at last."

"Ohmygawd, like, hey there, Ranma," Akane said, giggling and smiling suggestively at him.

Two people Kuno didn't know appeared behind Ranma. One was a very attractive girl in slightly oversized clothing with a bandanna in her hair, and the other was a nine-foot-tall armored monster with brightly glowing eyes.

The girl looked relieved. "Akane! Thank God we found you," she huffed. She stared at Ranma irately.

Kuno scowled at the two new arrivals. Accursed minions of the demon Saotome, no doubt. "And who are you, to treat with Akane in such a familiar manner?" he demanded, holding his bokken before him threateningly.

"I'm, uh, Ryo...ko...someone, never mind," the girl grumbled. She pointed her finger at Kuno's posturing form. "Never mind that! We're here for Akane. Move it or you'll get hurt."

"Feh!" Kuno chortled. "Very well. I accept your challenge, bandanna-girl!" He thought for a second, then added: "If you win, I shall permit you to date with me!"

"She does not want to date you, human," the armored monster boomed at him informatively.

"And what would _you_ know of such things, demon?" Kuno demanded, his knuckles going white on his bokken. "Enough talk! Now we fight!"

You have to give Kuno credit. Not too many people would see a huge armored monster armed with deadly psionic blades and think, _I should really challenge that thing to a duel._

After Kuno completed issuing his challenge, it took exactly 0.5 seconds for him to be annihilated and knocked out cold by Ukyou the Zealot's devastating rush.

Ukyou's eyes gleamed. "You know, I could get used to this."

Ryoga reached into her pack, and pulled out the last vial of Spring of Drowned Zealot water. She faced Ranma, who was glaring at her angrily.

She smiled at him. "C'mere, asshole."

He snickered. "Fuck you, bitch." He immediately put Akane into a headlock. "Don't come any closer with that or the valley girl gets it!" he warned, removing a vial of Spring of Drowned Orangutan and waving it around threateningly.

Ukyou the Zealot gasped in dismay. "You wouldn't!" she thundered, pointing at Ranma with a shaking finger. "Ran-chan, taking a hostage to avoid a fight! What an _asshole_!"

"Eeek!" Akane whimpered helplessly. "Like, please don't hurt me! Ohmygawd, I'm, like, too _pretty_ to die!"

Ryoga snorted. "Due to all the training I've had with my bandannas, you should know better than anyone, Ranma..." She spun the vial deftly between her fingers. "I never miss!"

Ryoga _would_ have been right, except that Ranma pulled a White Snake Venom Reliable Fist at the last second, vanishing and causing Akane to lurch forward and land flat on her face, so the vial spilled its contents all over Kuno's prone form, instead. "Shit!" Ryoga cursed, as her back received a vicious pummeling. She crashed to the ground, then leapt up again just in time to avoid the vial of Spring of Drowned Orangutan water, which shattered on the ground next to her.

"Curse you, Ranma!" Ryoga bellowed, before being tossed aside effortlessly by a rampaging Kuno Zealot, who was roaring "MY LIFE FOR AIUR!" while beating Ranma to a pulp.

"ENOUGH!" Ukyou boomed, removing Ranma from Kuno's grasp. "You will not abuse my Ran-chan like that, Kuno!"

"Fuck you all," Ranma groaned, sliding bonelessly to the ground.

Kuno and Ukyou met in a whirlwind of flashing psi blades and declarations of "FOR ADUN!", "DOOM TO ALL WHO THREATEN THE HOMEWORLD!", "You hurt my Ran-chan!", and "HONOR GUIDE ME!"

The rain stopped.

Ryoga sighed with relief, pulled out several thermoses of hot water, and tossed them at the dueling zealots, at which point the duel just devolved into a mindless brawl.

* * *

"So," Ranma said, lying on the ground, drained.

Ryoga, male again, stared at him balefully. "So." He was propped up against the fence, breathing raggedly.

"We definitely need to do something about your curse, Ran-chan," Ukyou said. Akane nodded. "Agreed." The two of them were also slumped against the fence, occasionally shooting resentful glares in each other's general direction.

"Ukyou Kuonji," Kuno's battered form croaked, sprawled out on top of the fence. "You have...defeated me...I would date with you..."

Ryoga rummaged through his pack. "You can take your pick, Ranma. But you really have got to change."

Ranma ran his hand through his hair. "But...I mean, bein' an asshole isn't all that bad..."

"You just tried to take Akane hostage," Ryoga reminded him sourly. "And then you tried to turn me into an orangutan. Plus you've used that stupid Snake Venom Fist or whatever on me _three times_ today and my back feels like it has been crushed by a bulldozer. YOU'RE CHANGING YOUR CURSE."

"Okay, okay, jeez," Ranma grumbled. "Well...how about Spring of Drowned Life-Size Darth Vader Poster?" he asked hopefully. "Mousse seems to like that pretty well..."

"You don't have any of that, remember?" Ukyou said, taking turns glaring at the two boys, and then over at Akane. "Or Asshole water. Or Drowned Girl water. Which is why I can't be cured."

The three of them were silent for a minute, watching Ryoga go through his voluminous pack. He seemed to be getting more and more agitated.

At length, Ryoga said flatly, "It's all gone."

Akane looked into the pack. "What do you mean, all gone?"

"I think when we all fell on top of each other and Akane got cursed with the valley girl water, most of the vials broke. All that's in here now is broken glass, a small puddle of water that contains God knows how many curses, and this last vial here..." He pulled it out, looking at it bitterly.

Ukyou stared at the writing on the side of the vial. "That's...that's Spring of Drowned Girl water! You _did_ bring some back!"

"No!" Akane gasped, looking frantically through the pack. "You can't mean..."

"Yes," Ryoga confirmed, lying down on the pavement, exhausted. "Asshole Ranma is here to stay."

"Aw, c'mon, guys, it ain't that bad," Ranma attempted to reassure them, looking embarrassed. "I mean, I think I can-"

He was interrupted by a car speeding along too close to the curb, which sprayed rainwater all over him and Ryoga.

Ryoga clenched her dripping fists. "Life isn't fair."

"Why don't you fucking whine about it some more, you stupid whore," Ranma sneered, without the energy to get up from the pavement.

Ryoga didn't manage to get up, either. "I hate you, Ranma."

* * *

After an hour-long ordeal to de-assholize Ranma, the four of them walked (very slowly) to the Ucchan, where Ukyou somehow found herself staring at the other three from behind the counter. Ranma and Ryoga both grinned at her expectantly. Akane looked vaguely angry.

Ukyou resigned herself to the inevitable and began to prepare some okonomiyaki batter.

"So," Akane said, breaking the ice. "About that Spring of Drowned Girl water."

Ryoga held the vial between his thumb and forefinger. "There's only enough here for one person. Who should we use it on, Akane or Ukyou?" He glared at Ranma. "Or Ranma?"

"Hey, now I am _not_-"

"Ranma might be the best choice," Ukyou broke in thoughtfully. "I mean, I don't know about Akane, but I kind of enjoy turning into a nine-foot-tall bad-ass. And let's face it, having Asshole Ranma around is about as much fun as dueling a rampaging ultralisk."

Ranma looked confused. "What...?"

"'Ultralisk?'" Ryoga repeated, puzzled.

Akane shuddered. "Look, as bad as Asshole Ranma may be, I really didn't like turning into a valley girl." She fixed Ukyou with a dark stare. "Have you ever felt like all your brains had suddenly turned to mush and leaked out of your ears?"

"Look," Ranma interjected, annoyed, "I am _not_ going back to turnin' into a girl, you hear me? And anyway, that water should be used to cure one of you two girls. It's stupid to waste it on me."

"We could vote on it," Ukyou suggested reasonably, dumping the batter on the hot grill. Ukyou looked at the vial more closely. "Are you _sure_ that's Drowned Girl water, Ryoga? Move your thumb. I can't see all of the writing on there."

"Say what-?"

The wall exploded.

"RANMA SAOTOME." A menacing figure in a leather jacket, camouflage pants, and combat boots stood in the newly formed doorway.

"Who are you?" Ukyou demanded. "And why did you kick a giant hole in my wall, when the door is literally four feet away?"

"I apologize, ma'am," the menacing figure growled, stalking towards Ranma, his face twisted with rage. "I was too intent on getting my revenge on Ranma Saotome, who took _everything_ from me, destroyed my life, destroyed my reason for living, and never gave it so much as a second thought!"

"Good to see you too, Ryu," Ranma greeted him. "Everyone, this is Ryu Kumon. Ryu Kumon, everyone."

"This is not the time for your pleasantries, Ranma Saotome," Ryu snarled. "You took the Thousand Mountain Fist techniques from me and made me seal up the scroll...yet just today I saw you fighting someone with the Thousand Sea Fist technique, the White Snake Venom Reliable Fist! You have violated our agreement!"

Ranma sighed. "Ryu...the agreement was that _you_ would never use the Thousand Mountain Fist techniques again. I won. I can do whatever I want." He grinned. "Anyway, wasn't me you saw. That was just some asshole."

"Spare me your pitiful lies." Ryu twisted his body into a crouch, his muscles tensed. "I am no longer bound by our agreement! DIE, RANMA SAOTOME!" He leveled a massive punch at Ranma. "POISON SNAKE DEEP HOLE BLOW!" Ranma ducked easily under the vicious attack, which instead connected with the vial in Ryoga's hand, smashing it. The contents sprayed all over Ranma.

"NOOOO!" Ranma howled, as his voice changed.

"Ran-chan!" Ukyou shouted, upending a cup of cold water on herself and bounding over the counter as she transformed.

"Ranma, you-!" Ryu paused, staring at the enormous form hurtling towards him for about a quarter-second before she crashed into him, sending them both rolling towards the far wall. Ryu somehow managed to disentangle himself from the monster, then leapt away. He looked like someone trying very hard not to panic. "DEMON GOD ASSAULT BOMB!" he screamed, unleashing a massive crescent-shaped ki blast at Ukyou.

Ukyou's eyes glowed as her invisible shields absorbed the attack harmlessly.

Ryu stared. "Oh, shit."

Ukyou charged at him. He somehow managed to dodge her first strike, and then sort of dodged the second one, but she was much, much faster than he was and the third psi-enhanced punch cracked him cleanly across the jaw. He soared across the restaurant in a perfectly smooth arc and landed head-first in Ryoga's pack.

"Feh," Ukyou snorted, drawing a glass of hot water from the tap and pouring it on herself.

"Oh, shit," Ryoga said, staring in horror at Ryu's body. "There's probably ten different kinds of cursed water in a puddle in the bottom of that pack..."

Ranma bounded over to Ukyou happily and clung to Ukyou's arm. "Ohmygawd, you like, _protected_ me, Ucchan, you're like so totally cool 'n' stuff!"

Ukyou grinned at her. "Hey, no prob...lem...Ran-chan?" A horrible suspicion dawned in Ukyou's mind. She bent down to pick up the broken pieces of the vial that had cursed Ranma. One fragment had 'Spring of Drowned' written on it, another had 'Girl,' and the last fateful piece had 'Valley.' She groaned. "This isn't happening..."

Akane and Ryoga continued to stare at Ryu's twitching frame, as he slowly got to his feet, and removed Ryoga's soaked pack from his head.

He looked just like Akane.

"Spring of Drowned Japanese Tomboy," Ryoga mumbled thoughtfully.

"You have got to be kidding me," Akane said.

Ryu-Akane closed her eyes and clenched her fists. "Why...why do I feel this consuming desire to hit something with a mallet?"

Akane looked embarrassed and dumped a glass of hot water on Ryu-Akane. Instant Ryu.

"Enough of this!" Ryu growled. He raised his fist at Ranma, who had undone her pigtail and was in the process of elaborately fixing up her hair. "Ranma Saotome, you have now ruined my life in yet _another_ way! Prepare yourself!"

Ranma shrieked girlishly, throwing herself to the side in terror. Ryu's furious leap missed Ranma by a considerable margin, and he sailed outside through the giant hole he had made in the wall, cursing. Akane looked after him out the 'door,' noticing that it had started raining again, and did a double-take when an infuriated water buffalo charged back through the hole.

Ukyou stared. "Wait...do you think...maybe he changes into something _different_ every time he gets wet?" She poured a glass of hot water on the angry water buffalo. Instant Ryu.

"Curse you, Ranma Saotome," Ryu snarled. Before he could attack, Ukyou poured a glass of cold water on him, and he changed into a furious orangutan. Hot water. Instant Ryu. Cold water. Eagle. Hot water. Ryu. Cold water. Gangsta. Hot water. Ryu. Cold water. Akane.

"ENOUGH ALREADY!" Ryu-Akane roared. She pointed her finger vindictively at Ranma's whimpering form. "Mark my words, Saotome. One day, I will find you when your monstrous friend is not here to defend you. And that will be the day you DIE!"

She looked around, bowed formally, then calmly strode out the giant hole in the wall.

Thirty seconds and one cup of hot water later, Ranma was staring down at his hands, repulsed and terrified. "This can't be happening to me!" he wailed, punching several more holes in the wall of Ukyou's already battered restaurant.

"Welcome to my hell, Ranma," Akane told him, deadpan.

* * *

Elsewhere, Jim Raynor and his rag-tag band of Protoss warriors assembled on a hill overlooking Tokyo.

"I don't reckon Danimoth counted on there bein' a city here," he said in his fringe-world drawl.

Mojo the Scout, who was short for a Protoss, barely over seven feet tall, and not really a scout anymore, since he had Recalled here without his scout ship, nodded to him. "All we have are the coordinates and the time for dimensional Recall, Raynor."

Jim nodded, staring out over the city. "Three more days..."

Eight months and two weeks ago, fighting a desperate losing battle against Kerrigan's Zerg armies, Jim had assembled a group of twenty-four of his best warriors and fought his way to the Shakuras's last functional warp gate. Twelve made it there alive, including Mojo, who had barely survived the loss of his ship, and one of his zealot warriors had actually, through some horrible misfortune, warped into the bottom of some kind of spring and drowned.

He also knew that Kerrigan would be hunting him, and could calculate the destination of Shakuras's warp gate without too much trouble. It would not be hard for her to figure out a way to Recall her own soldiers in somehow, even though they were thousands of light-years away, and, from what Jim had read of Earth, most likely displaced in time as well as space.

And what better time for her to ambush them when they were preparing for dimensional Recall?

Three more days...


	3. Darth Mousse Strikes Back!

Part 3: Darth Mousse Strikes Back!

Ranma sighed for something like the eightieth time the following morning, plodding disconsolately through the halls of Furinkan High School.

Honestly.

It was bad enough just turning into a girl. That he had made an eight-month trek all the way to Jusenkyo, actually _gotten a cure_ (of sorts), then walked all the way back to Japan, only to receive an even worse curse from that idiot Ryu...that was a fate worse than death.

_A valley girl. Dear God, why did it have to be a_ valley girl? _Why did we even bring back Spring of Drowned Valley Girl water? What were we thinking? How could we have been so stupid?_

He ground his teeth, listening to the teacher's lecture without any interest at all. Not that he would have understood anything even if he had been paying attention; as with most classes, it was not possible to be absent for eight months without getting pretty far behind.

Not having an extremely clear idea on what a valley girl even was, he had done a little research on Nabiki's computer the previous night, and was completely appalled at what he found. A 'valley girl,' according to the Wikipedia, was, "...a cartoonish stereotype of young women - typically characterized by a 'ditzy' or 'airheaded' personality, and unapologetically 'spoiled' behaviour that showed more interest in shopping, personal appearance, and popular social status, rather than in any self-enriching pursuit." He had continued reading, with increasing horror: "...typically blonde-haired, (possibly dyed) and is sometimes portrayed as hypersexual."

Fate. Worse. Than. Death.

"Ranma...?"

Ranma looked up at his friend Hiroshi, who was staring at him with a look of concern. He realized he had been banging his head against his desk repeatedly. "Uh...yeah?"

"You okay, man?"

"Um...yeah, I'm just fine." An obvious lie. "I, uh...this is a new, uh, martial arts exercise. To strengthen the forehead. Against impacts."

Hiroshi looked at him skeptically. "Right."

Ranma began staring at the board again, trying very hard to control himself, not aware that his efforts were completely in vain, as he was surrounded by an aura of rage so strong that the air was actually shimmering around him.

The bell rang. Ranma stood up and stalked quickly over to the door. There _had_ to be something he could do about this. This was not a tolerable situation.

He skipped his next class to go find Akane.

* * *

Although not as distraught about her situation as Ranma was about his, Akane was definitely out-of-sorts that morning, so much so that she actually forgot where her next class was, wound up being late, and so had to stand in the hall, carrying buckets full of water, as punishment.

Every time she looked at the water in the buckets, she shuddered involuntarily. _This is much worse than Ranma's old curse,_ she thought, scowling nervously, then reconsidered. _Well, turning into a man would be pretty weird, too._

At least it didn't mess with your head, though. That had to be the worst thing possible.

Kuno appeared, dressed, for once, in a normal school uniform, rather than his moderately ridiculous-looking kendo skirt. He was also carrying buckets, but he was in a different class than she was. She scowled at him. Was he just wandering around the school, looking for people to annoy?

"Akane Tendo, how good to look upon your fair countenance this day," he greeted her, airily.

Akane shied away from him, her eyes wide. Actually, the worst thing about turning into a valley girl was probably that she remembered with perfect clarity everything she had done as a valley girl. In this case, she recalled quite vividly flirting shamelessly with Kuno, and having told him that he looked hot in his kendo skirt.

She looked at him, trying not to let her lip curl with disgust. "Don't...you have somewhere to be, Kuno? Your own class, for example?"

"Ah, but where would I prefer to be," he babbled on, completely oblivious, "but here, basking in the radiance of your beauty, Akane Tendo?"

Her knuckles went white on the handles of the buckets. _Hot in his kendo skirt. Dear God, kill me now. Or at least get me the hell away from any kind of cold water, for the rest of my life._ She stared down into the buckets, shivering.

"Yo, Akane!"

She looked down to the other end of the hall. She didn't think she had ever been so glad to see Ranma in her whole life. _I_ really _need to talk to someone about this, or I am going to lose it._

Kuno pulled out his bokken. Akane hadn't noticed him carrying it a moment ago, and didn't want to think about where exactly he might have been storing it. "Halt, Ranma Saotome!"

Ranma's face was taut with anger. "Kuno, look-"

Kuno set one of his buckets down calmly, and threw the other one at Ranma. The water drenched him. "Ranma Saotome, I challenge you to-"

Akane covered her eyes. "Oh, God. This is not happening."

Kuno gasped. "Pigtailed girl! How did...?"

Ranma looked around with a vacant, happy expression on her face. "Like, what's going _on_?" she whined, twirling her hair around her finger.

Kuno glomped onto her happily. "Fear not, my vision of loveliness!" he declared, doing everything short of humping her leg. "I will free you from the clutches of that vile sorcer-"

Ranma growled and picked him up with one slender arm, and hurled him bodily out of the second-floor window. She looked after him, disgusted. "Ugh! Ohmygawd, I can't believe he just tried to, like, totally _touch_ me! Guh-ross!"

Akane looked at him in astonishment. Well, it seemed like he retained his sexual orientation, even in valley girl form. She supposed that was a good sign for her own sanity.

"Ranma..." she began, not exactly sure how to approach the other girl. "Uh..."

"Akane!" the smaller girl greeted her happily, giving her a glomp of a hug not terribly different from what Kuno had just subjected her to. "Ohmygawd, it's like so totally good to see you! Like, how are _you_, ohmygawd, you look, like, totally _cute_ today!"

Akane began to wonder if Ranma was hitting on her. As a girl. That thought was somehow unnerving, too.

Hot water. _How to get Ranma to come with me..._

_Well,_ she considered, _he's already sort of attached himself to me..._ She spun around quickly, so that the glomping Ranma was now attached to her back, instead of her front, and began to carry her toward the bathroom.

* * *

Mousse's romancing of Shampoo was not going as planned.

In his mind, he had always assumed that once he was cured of his curse, Shampoo would leap into his arms, and they would return to China, be married, be happy, have lots of babies, and so on. But he was finding, much to his dismay, that there actually seemed to be more to her repulsion of him than merely his curse!

_I suppose I should have thought of that before,_ he reflected, in an odd moment of clarity. _After all, she never cared that Ranma was cursed._

Blast!

He briefly considered going on a righteous crusade to murder Ranma, but somehow, that didn't seem like it would accomplish a whole lot at this point. Since most of his solutions to this problem in the past had either involved getting rid of the curse, or killing Ranma, he was at a loss.

He sat down and spent some quality time brooding.

Thirty minutes passed.

_Damn, still can't think of anything._ He looked over into the corner of the Cat Cafe, where a large bucket of water sat, for no apparent reason.

Well, that was one way to come up with some new ideas, he supposed. He stood up, walked over to the corner of the room, and upended the bucket on his head.

Suddenly, he had it!

He would _kidnap_ Shampoo, drag her to the top of a desolate mountain, then torment her soul with mind-altering drugs and his own evil powers until she broke down and joined the Dark Side!

_Man,_ he reflected, chuckling evilly to himself as he walked off to implement his brilliant plan, _why didn't I think of this before?_

* * *

"Well, at least I wasn't attracted to Kuno, or nothin'," Ranma muttered, staring out the window.

Akane nodded. "Yes, this could certainly be worse."

Ranma's face was a mask of fury. "But...not a whole _lot_ worse."

They were silent for a moment, then Akane said it: "So...what can we do about this?"

"Go to Jusenkyo again."

She didn't have an immediate reply for that. She had thought about that briefly, but, as before, they lacked the money to get to such a remote place in anything like a reasonable amount of time, and she didn't really think it was practical to skip school for the better part of a year.

Slowly, she shook her head. "I don't know, Ranma...I don't think that's really a practical-"

"I don't care if it's practical," Ranma cut her off, clenching his fists. "I was willing to travel all the way there before, to get rid of a curse that ain't half so bad as what I've got now. I'm going back to Jusenkyo."

Akane sighed. "There really is no other way...?" she asked, almost rhetorically.

"What, like mail-order Jusenkyo?" Ranma retorted, bitterly.

"Look, I didn't mean-"

"RANMA SAOTOME."

Ranma favored the source of the voice with a flat - really, _really_ flat - stare. "Ryu." He popped his knuckles, walking towards him. "Just who I wanted to see."

Akane looked at him, quizzically. "Do you go to school here, Ryu?"

"No. I have spent most of my free time stalking Ranma since our ill-fated duel, however, so I of course know where he goes to school. I also know that he turns into a woman occasionally, and has lately become something of an asshole. Enough talk!" Ryu thrust a finger at him. "Ranma Saotome! You have ruined my-"

Ranma stopped about an inch in front of Ryu's face and grabbed a fistful of the collar of his shirt. "What were ya saying, there, Ryu?" he growled, literally glowing with rage. "What did I do? Did I _ruin your life_, is _that_ what ya were tryin' to say?"

Ryu seemed somewhat taken aback at Ranma's uncustomary fury. "I, uh...yeah, you did...you ruined my..."

Ranma picked him up his his collar and started shaking him violently with both hands. "No, Ryu Kumon, _you_ ruined _my_ life! Do you have any idea at all what you've done to me, Ryu? ANY IDEA AT ALL?"

Ryu shoved himself away from Ranma. He brushed his shirt with an air of offended dignity. "I have no idea," he said, perfectly honestly. "Anyway, my reason for coming here was to challenge you to a duel-"

"I accept," Ranma said immediately, his eyes burning with anger. "Follow me outside."

Ryu snorted. "Feh. Not today, you imbecile," he said, contemptuously. "In two days, Ranma Saotome! Meet me in the field outside this school in two days, or I will hunt you down like the coward you are!"

Ranma charged at him. "I'm not waiting _two days_!" he roared, his massive axe kick smashing clean through the floor where Ryu had been standing a moment before. "FIGHT ME _NOW_!"

Ryu laughed. "FIERCE TIGER OPENING GATES BLOW!" His kick blew an enormous round hole in the wall, and Ryu leapt through it. "Two days, Ranma Saotome!" he called, as he soared off into the distance.

Ranma watched him bound off across the rooftops with disgust. "Two days..."

* * *

Ryu walked down a street in Nerima, whistling to himself. He was fairly certain, from observing Ranma use it so many times the previous day, that he had figured out the technique for the White Snake Venom Reliable Fist. He was certain he could have it thoroughly worked out in two days. It was not the entire Thousand Sea Fist scroll, which he had once sought for for so long, but it would have to do.

And now he was freed from Ranma's monumentally unfair vow, free to perfect the Thousand Mountain Fist techniques. He smiled. After he defeated Ranma Saotome, even rebuilding the Kumon Dojo would no longer be a dream!

He stopped in front of a building that had a a huge round hole blown in its side. _Ucchan's Okonomiyaki,_ he read. A mouth-watering scent permeated the air in front of the door, and also in front of the giant hole. If anything, the presence of the giant hole actually seemed to be helping business, as customers happily stepped over the rubble to reach the source of the wonderful smell.

A pretty, wiry girl with long brown hair stepped out of the building, a wooden sign with the dinner specials written on it in her hands.

Wait.

Ryu looked at her more closely. Wasn't she that girl who...

The girl noticed him, scowled, then immediately ran back into the restaurant. Ryu heard the sound of water splashing, then suddenly it clicked, about a second too late, who she was.

A nine-foot-tall monster charged out of the building, howling for blood.

"Oh, shit," Ryu said.

* * *

"SHAMPOO."

Shampoo looked up at the sound of the strange, preposterously deep voice, and did a double-take when she realized that it was coming from Mousse.

"Mousse?" she asked, puzzled. "What happened to voice?"

He removed a giant axe that he had somehow been hiding in his robes. "Come with me and you won't get hurt," he thundered, an evil gleam in his eyes. "Much."

Shampoo fixed him with a withering stare. Such a stare was normally enough to reduce him to a whimpering, begging mess, but Mousse-with-the-strange-voice seemed impervious to it.

He hefted the axe. "Do not think to defy me, princess. My powers are greater than you know."

She laughed. "Shampoo not afraid of stupid boy!" She removed her bonbori clubs from the wall. "Mousse want to fight?"

He began to walk toward her menacingly, when he heard Cologne's brittle voice behind him. "Boy!" she said sharply, her voice like a whip. "What do you think you're doing?"

Mousse gave a sinister laugh. "Kidnapping your precious little princess," he rumbled, turning around with a giant chain gun in his hands. "She will join us or die!"

"'Us?'" Cologne repeated, arching an eyebrow.

Mousse gave her a black look. "DIE, OLD WOMAN!"

Even Cologne, ancient and vastly skilled martial artist that she was, was forced to flee in panic as Mousse laid waste to the Cat Cafe with his chain gun.

* * *

"Yeah, you sure showed that guy," Ryoga commented, eating.

Ukyou glared at him from behind the counter. The late late dinner today was quite slow, for some reason, (she privately blamed the gigantic hole in the side of the building), so the two of them were almost alone in the Ucchan as it began to get dark outside. "Quiet. What was I supposed to do? He disappeared into thin air." She harrumphed. "Anyway, I was just _saying_ that how unbelievable it was that he just busted into my building like that, tried to kill Ran-chan..."

Ryoga grinned, eating. "Yeah, God knows neither of _us_ would ever try anything like that."

She continued to glare at him. "Are you planning on paying for all this food you're eating, Ryoga?" she demanded.

He stopped grinning. "Eh..."

They sat in silence for a while, and the last customer left. Ryoga continued eating, trying not to think about whether or not Ukyou was going to make him pay for the massive amount of food he had consumed over the course of the afternoon.

She was locking the front door when Shampoo's withered great-grandmother, of all people, came bounding through Ryu's gaping hole, winded and obviously unnerved.

Ukyou glared at her. There were a number of people who Ukyou truly, honestly did not like in this world, and Cologne was definitely high on that list. "Come to sample some real cooking for a change?" she asked the old woman, with a sweet smile.

Cologne perched on top of her staff like a wrinkled squirrel of fury. "There is no time for your petty slights, Kuonji! Shampoo has been kidnapped!"

"How tragic." Ukyou couldn't repress a vengeful smile. _That's the best news I've heard all day!_

"Mousse has gone insane, and kidnapped Shampoo, you foolish girl!" the old crone ranted. "And my son-in-law is nowhere to be found! This is a tragedy of _epic proportions_, and yet you stand there and do _nothing_!"

"Shampoo and I hate each other," Ukyou reminded her dryly. "Also, you have both always treated me like dirt. I'm the _last_ person you should be asking for help."

Ryoga looked at Cologne curiously. "Why on Earth would you need anyone's help rescuing Shampoo from _Mousse_?"

Cologne glowered at him. "Because he has somehow acquired a giant chain-gun."

"Ohh!" Ryoga said, suddenly understanding. "It's _Darth_ Mousse. Okay, whole 'nother story."

"'Darth' Mousse?" Cologne repeated, confused.

"Yeah, he made my life a living hell for approximately six months," Ryoga explained. "Has anyone told you what happened when me, Ranma, and Mousse went to China?"

Cologne shook her head.

Ryoga told the story.

When he finished, Cologne was still shaking her head. "Spring of Drowned Life-Size Darth Vader Poster," she repeated to herself in disbelief. "What a tragic story!" She pointed an accustory finger at Ryoga, who she evidently had decided was more likely to help her than Ukyou was. "Ryoga! Listen to me. If we do not rescue Shampoo from Mousse's evil clutches, I believe something _terrible_ may happen to your friend!"

Ukyou coughed. "I sense a lie coming on."

Cologne glared at her. "Silence, foolish girl! If Mousse is not stopped...within 48 hours, his _intestines will explode_!" She jumped over to Ryoga and looked at him earnestly. "Surely you would not wish such a horrid fate on your dear friend?"

Ryoga stared at her, shocked. "That's...that's horrible!" He stood up, shouldering his pack. "Ukyou, we have to go and save Mousse!" He glanced at Cologne. "And, uh, Shampoo, too, of course."

Ukyou groaned a groan of epic proportions, the kind of groan that makes you actually have to sit down and bury your face in your hands in utter despair, having lost all of your faith in humanity. "Ryoga, you idiot."

"That's the spirit, Ryoga!" Cologne cheered. "I knew I could count on you, brave boy!"

"Do you even have any idea where Mousse has taken her?" Ukyou asked, her face still buried in her hands.

Cologne ahemed. "Well. Sort of. He ran off in the direction of the train station, and was ranting about taking her to the mountains to torment her soul, so our best choice would be to make for the train station immediately, and hope to catch him before he leaves!"

Ryoga clenched his fists, righteous anger on his face. "A sound plan, old woman. Ukyou will come as well."

Ukyou glared at him. "Oh, _will I_?"

"She is of no consequence!" Cologne snapped, hopping off toward the hole. "Come, Ryoga! There is no time to lose!"

Ryoga didn't budge. "Ukyou, not that I don't think I could handle this myself, but...let's face it, you have pretty much become the world's ultimate bad-ass."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, my friend."

"But you're coming, right?"

"Yep."

* * *

Ironically enough, Ranma was nowhere to be found because he and Akane were busy scouring the streets for Cologne. They noticed, with some alarm, that the Cat Cafe appeared to have been completely demolished by someone with a very large gun.

"That old woman is just as likely to do something horrible to us as help us find a cure," Akane was saying, ready to snap open the giant umbrella in her hand at any moment. She casted occasional fearful glances at the dark grey clouds gathering overhead. "Particularly to _me_. She might want to help _you_, Ranma, but why would she possibly help me?"

Ranma stared ahead grimly, armed with his own giant umbrella. "I dunno, Akane. But short of going back to Jusenkyo, the old ghoul is the only one I can think that might be able t' help us."

Akane shivered a bit. "Ranma..."

He tensed. "Don't worry, Akane. We're gonna fix this."

They passed in front of the train station entrance. Ranma continued to walk, but Akane did a double-take, and peered into the station.

"Ranma!"

Ranma looked back, puzzled. "Yeah?"

Akane pointed at a white-robed figure waiting on the platform, his back to them. "Isn't that...Mousse?"

He stared. "And he's got Shampoo slung over his shoulder like she's some kinda rag doll..." He clenched his fists. "She might be in some kinda trouble! We've gotta help her!"

"Trouble?" Akane asked. "From _Mousse_? I can't picture him ever-" She paused. "Wait..."

"Mousse?" Ranma grinned slightly. "Never. _Darth_ Mousse? Wouldn't put nothin' past that guy."

Mousse turned around to face them, an evil smile on his bespectacled face. "You have managed to find me," he boomed, removing a gigantic chain-gun from his robes. "Impressive. Most impressive. Now, DIE!"

"Akane, look out!" Ranma tackled her, sending them both flying well clear of the station entrance. The thin crowd waiting on the platform paused for a moment in collective disbelief, then began screaming and fleeing in terror as the maniac with the chain gun started firing off hundreds of rounds in the general direction of the entrance.

"Fools!" Darth Mousse rumbled, his chain-gun rattling to a stop. He laughed, beginning to walk towards the entrance. "I have you now..."

The train arrived behind him.

He stepped onto the train. The other people in the station quailed in fear. "Well...perhaps I will let you both live...for now."

* * *

Cologne looked around at the rubble of the train station's completely wrecked entrance. By some miracle, no one seemed to have been hurt by whatever disaster had taken place here. "Yes..." she mumbled. "It is a safe bet that they were here."

* * *

Unbeknownst to either Darth Mousse or any of the terrified passengers aboard the train, Ranma and Akane were atop the train, hanging on for dear life as the surface train sped along at speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour.

"This seems like a bad idea, Ranma!" Akane yelled, screaming at the top of her lungs to be heard of the roar of the wind.

"You're tellin' me!" he screamed back, switching the hand that he was using to anchor himself to the top of the train. "But we gotta stop Mousse before he really hurts someone!"

"I can't believe you and Mousse chose such idiotic curses for yourselves!" Akane complained. Strong as she was, she was still forced to use both hands to hang on. She added: "I can't believe we're riding on the _top of a train_! This seems like a really bad idea, Ranma!"

"All we gotta do is pour some hot water on him!" Ranma shouted. "Then whatever we end up doing about our own curses, we can make Mousse do that, too!"

Akane considered that. That was not a bad plan, really. It certainly _sounded_ easy, to hear him tell it...

Now all that was left was to try not to lose her grip until the stupid train came to a stop.

* * *

Darth Mousse stood up abruptly as the train screeched to a halt. The small town they had pulled up to was close enough to the mountains, and he was quickly losing patience, just sitting passively on the train like some ordinary, pathetic mortal.

When the doors opened, he noticed, with a frown, that the entire area had been barricaded off by the local police.

He looked around. There were eight squad cars formed in a semi-circle around the exit to the open-air train platform, and at least twice that many cops. Two of them were dressed in full riot gear, and another three had 12-gauge shotguns trained on his chest.

"PUT THE GIRL DOWN!" shouted an angry-looking older cop with a megaphone. "LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND, AND PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR-"

Mousse raised his hand impassively, and sort of waved it on front of his face.

"I'm not the one you're looking for," he pointed out.

"Good point," the cop with the megaphone agreed. "This isn't the guy we're looking for," he called out to the men around him. "Keep your eyes peeled for a _different_ white-robed Chinese guy with an unconscious blue-haired girl slung over his shoulder, boys!"

"Yes, sir!" The men around him nodded grimly, and went back to their positions.

* * *

Ranma and Akane dropped down off the back end of the train.

"Man, what's with all these police?" Ranma muttered.

Akane shook her head. "I don't know, but whoever they're looking for, I guess it isn't Mousse, since they just let him walk through..." She glanced around the corner of the train's last car. It was hard to see with the glare of the sunset in her face, but Mousse was pretty easy to spot, with his long hair and white robe. "Should we go talk to them?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "Eh...I dunno, Akane. The police'll probably try to arrest him, and-"

"And then they can douse him with hot water!" she finished eagerly. "We just have to let them know what's going on!"

She walked out towards the police barricade, waving her arms. "Hey! HEY! Officers!"

"Akane!" Ranma hissed, walking hastily after her. "Akane, wait-"

One of the policemen, an older man with a megaphone in his hand, greeted her officiously. "Ma'am, I don't know what it is you think you need, but we're in the middle of a operation here; some maniac just shot up the Nerima train station not a half hour ago. He might be-"

Akane pointed at Mousse's retreating form. "That's him! That guy! The white-robed Chinese guy with the unconscious girl on his shoulder! You need to-"

The cop shook his head firmly. "No, that's not the guy we're looking for."

"Who do you think you're looking for?" Akane demanded, doing everything short of shaking the man. "I promise you, _that's_ the guy you're looking for, I was _there_ when he shot up the train station this afternoon!"

"No," the cop said calmly. He turned his eyes from Akane back to the parked train. "We're looking for a _different_ white-robed Chinese guy with an unconscious blue-haired girl slung over his shoulder," he explained in a reasonable tone. "Now, if you'll excuse me, ma'am."

Akane fumed as he walked away.

Ranma stared after him, puzzled. "That...didn't make any sense at all."

"Idiots!" Akane growled, grabbing Ranma by the wrist. "C'mon, Ranma!"

They began to chase after Darth Mousse's quickly retreating form just in time to see him beat up an old man in the middle of the street and steal his car.

"Dammit," Akane cursed, as Mousse sped off. "How on Earth are we going to catch him now?"

* * *

Darth Mousse chuckled evilly to himself as he slammed on the accelerator, sending pedestrians scattering before him like the insects they were.

He made it almost four miles before he remembered that he didn't really know how to drive.

"Accursed machine!" he raged, as the car sailed off the road.

* * *

Ryoga, Ukyou, and Cologne sat and fidgeted on the train for a half hour.

Ukyou broke the silence, at some length: "Um, so...how will we know where they got off, exactly?"

No one had a response to that, so they sat and fidgeted some more.

Eventually, the train shuddered to a stop. Cologne looked out the window at the massive police blockade around the platform's exit. "This might be a good place to start," she said, hopping out onto the platform.

* * *

After about four miles, at the base of a very steep wooded hill, Ranma and Akane came upon a smouldering heap of a car, halfway wrapped around a giant oak tree. Judging from the state of the ground near the car, the driver had panicked rather badly and had slammed on the brakes, soared off the road, and done two full 360's before smashing into the tree.

Ranma examined the car for a moment. "That's the car Mousse stole. I'm sure of it."

The sun was almost completely set. In the fading light, Akane could barely make out footsteps heading up the hill and into the forest, away from the car.

Akane sighed. "How are we going to follow them any further? It's going to be totally dark in another couple of minutes."

He shook his head. "We're going to have to wait until morning."

"What, you mean, camp out? We don't even have a tent, or sleeping bags, or-"

A roll of thunder sounded overhead.

"-umbrellas," she finished, groaning. They had both left their umbrellas behind at the train station in favor of hanging on to the top of Mousse's train. "As if this could have gotten any worse."

* * *

Cologne looked over Ukyou's body, fascinated, as the rain drenched all three of them.

"I am unusually good looking, even for a Protoss!" Ukyou the Zealot declared, posing demurely for Cologne's inspection.

"And what exactly is a Protoss?" Cologne inquired, poking at Ukyou's futuristic-looking combat armor.

"I don't have the slightest idea!" Ukyou responded, setting a brisk pace. A 'brisk pace' for a being that is nine feet tall, bear in mind, is at best a moderate jog for someone of normal human size.

Cologne turned her gaze to Ryoga's suddenly female body. The boy-turned-girl was holding her bamboo umbrella above her head uselessly, having been just slightly too slow on the draw. "And I see you turn into a woman, now, Ryoga." She cackled. "You look a bit like my son-in-law used to, even though your hair isn't red. And are you enjoying your new form as much as Miss Kuonji, here?"

Ryoga gave a short laugh, attempting to readjust her clothing on her new, smaller frame. "Let's just say there are worse fates than this," she responded dryly. She was shorter and slimmer as a girl, but she didn't shrink nearly as much as she remembered Ranma shrinking - in particular, her feet only became slightly smaller, which she was especially thankful for, as her shoes still fit after the change.

The cops had pointed them straight down the main road of the small town, and after a little over a half hour of walking at Ukyou's death-march pace, they noticed a car had gone off the road and smashed into a tree.

As they got closer, they noticed two figures huddled pathetically on the side of the road.

Ryoga stared. "Ranma...and A...Akane?" What on Earth were they doing here?

Ranma's eyes gleamed when she saw them. "Oh! Is that..." She jumped up and wrapped Ryoga in a tight glomp. "Ryoga! Ryoga! Ohmy_gawd_, it's like _so_ good to see you!" Ranma sort of nuzzled her face against Ryoga's in a way that she found acutely disturbing.

Ryoga looked at the smaller girl nervously. "R-Ranma? I...uh..." She held her umbrella above Ranma's head and hurriedly emptied one of their precious thermoses of hot water on her.

Cologne glanced at her sharply. "Ryoga!" she snapped. "Don't waste the hot water! We only have four more thermoses now!"

Ryoga was staring flatly at Ranma. "So, Ranma."

Ranma stared back, terrified. "Ryoga." He looked down at himself, hugging Ryoga's body _quite_ tightly, then snatched the umbrella from her fingers with a yelp and scrambled backwards, breathing raggedly.

Akane giggled as she watched Ranma's gender change. She winked at Ryoga. "Like, thanks, Ryoga, I like, _totally_ like him better this way!" she babbled, fixing her bangs carefully.

Ryoga reached into her pack for another thermos, but Cologne stopped her with a sharp rap on the knuckles with her staff. "No! Ryoga! It's not important to change her back. We only have one umbrella, which Ranma will be using!"

"But-" Ryoga stared into Akane's eyes. "But we can't just _leave_ her like this!" she protested.

Ranma nodded, a feverish look in his eyes. "Ryoga's right," he said. His face had a haunted cast to it. "Can't just leave her like that. No way."

Akane gave another ditzy giggle. "Ohmygawd, Ranma, come _on_, why are you, like, always trying to change me back or whatever?" She gave a cute little frown. "Are you saying you, like, don't like me the way I _am_?"

Ranma just sort of shuddered spasmically in response, trying to huddle as far away from the rain under Ryoga's umbrella as he possibly could.

After a while, they managed to coax the story out of the highly spooked Ranma.

"If they went up into the woods," Ryoga said, "then we're going to have to wait until morning to go look for them."

Ukyou nodded, her massive form still taller than them all by half a head even when she squatted down. "I agree," she boomed in her very non-Ukyou-ish voice. "Let us make camp here tonight."

"Here?" Cologne repeated, skeptically. "Right by the side of the road?"

Ryoga sighed, dropping her pack to the ground. "Good a place as any," she grunted, removing her tent from its straps and assembling it with long-practiced efficiency. "No sense in walking all the way back to the town. There's room for two inside," she said, as she worked. "Maybe three, if one of them is you, old woman."

"And who gets the tent?" Ukyou asked him, her bright gold eyes twinkling with amusement.

Ryoga smiled mirthlessly. "Certainly not you, you hulking behemoth," she responded, her voice sardonic. She ran her free hand through her thick hair, still black as night even as a woman. "Ranma and Akane should sleep in the tent, of course," she said shortly.

Ukyou's eyes gleamed silver-and-gold in the darkness. She looked over at Ranma and Akane; Ranma still seemed badly unnerved from his transformation, and Akane was being _very_ cuddly as she tried to comfort him. She stared at Ryoga levelly. "Ranma and Akane," she repeated.

She completed assembling the tent, then motioned to Ranma. "Get in, Ranma," she growled, practically shoving him in. She walked up to Akane gingerly. "A-Akane, you need to...to..."

Akane giggled at her, watching her expectantly.

Ryoga felt her face burning. _Somehow,_ she thought, _this is even _more _embarrassing when I'm a girl..._ "A...Akane, please...please use my tent tonight. If you wouldn't mind. You...you and Ranma."

As soon as Akane entered the tent, Ryoga emptied a thermos of hot water on her head and hastily tied the entrance shut, breathing hard.

"I told you not to waste any more of that water, foolish boy!" Cologne groused, staring daggers at her.

"Quiet, old woman." Ryoga sat down on a nearby log with a heavy sigh. "The thermoses'll be cold by morning anyway. We'll have to make a fire when we wake up to warm them again."

Cologne seemed like she was about to say something else, then pursed her lips, frowned, and disappeared into the tent behind Akane.

Ukyou was looking at Ryoga, her eyes glowing like hot coals. "It should be alright, so long as Akane's not in cursed form. They'll probably just spend all night arguing, right, Ryoga?"

Ryoga stared off into the darkness, and paid her no attention. "I hope this rain stops," she muttered, a far-off look in her eyes. But it was a half-hearted hope; it was strange and wonderful to feel the rain on her skin as a human again, and she closed her eyes with something like contentment as the cool drops pelted her face relentlessly.

The armored monster laughed. It was a strange sound.

Ryoga looked back at her. "Ukyou...? What's funny?"

Her bright eyes gleamed, but Ryoga couldn't tell whether they burned with humor or malice. She rumbled, not unkindly: "Nothing you would understand, human."

Ryoga shook her head. "I think you're starting to lose it, Ukyou." She stood up and unrolled her sleeping bag, but laid on top of it instead of climbing inside, savoring the feel of the rain on her body.

As she drifted off to sleep, she was barely conscious of Ukyou's silver-gold eyes glowing silently in the darkness, filled with some emotion she couldn't quite name.

* * *

Cologne shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid this curse is no different from your old curse, son-in-law."

Ranma's fist clenched and unclenched rhythmically. He closed his eyes. "So. There's nothin'. No...no trick, no technique you could use on me...no new discipline you could teach me..."

She considered that. "Ranma, think of it this way. This curse affects your body and your mind in much the same way as your old curse merely affected your body, and you can do exactly as much about this curse as you could about your old curse."

"Meanin' nothin'," he grunted, clenching his teeth. He looked over at Akane's softly snoring form, and seemed to grow even angrier.

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "not necessarily nothing."

He stared at her. "Whaddya mean, not 'necessarily' nothin'?" he demanded, his expression hard.

"Think about it, son-in-law. There were even things to be done about your old curse, if you stop and think about it. For example, did you know that there are many people in the world who actually _wish_ to change their sex?"

He laughed bitterly. "Only because they've never actually had to."

Cologne shrugged. "Nonetheless, there is surgery that modern doctors can perform that actually changes a person's sex. It's imperfect, of course, and naturally you would not have wanted that done on your female body..."

"What's your point?"

"Just this. Just as you had the imperfect solution of attempting to surgically alter your female body, you also have the imperfect option of disciplining yourself to have some measure of control over this valley girl form you have acquired."

He was silent for a moment. "Some measure of control," he repeated.

She nodded. "How you acquire that is up to you, I'm afraid, son-in-law. You must focus your mind. That is all I can tell you. You've told me that you are conscious of what you are doing even when you transform. Use that. _Focus_." She paused for a moment, then added, at length, "I suspect that whatever control you might obtain, it will be incomplete at best, and your valley girl personality will still be quite different from your own personality."

"Focus," Ranma repeated, a frightening intensity in his eyes. He stared balefully out of the tent's flap at the pouring rain. "I can focus, old ghoul. I can focus..."


	4. Return of the Asshole

Part 4: Return of the Asshole

Ryoga awoke at first light, and found that the rain had stopped during the night, replaced by an ominously dark cloud cover. The first thing she noticed was that Ukyou was sitting rigidly upright next to her, sitting in the lotus meditation position.

"Ukyou...?" Ryoga said, watching her with a groggy confusion. _Well,_ she considered, _maybe zealots don't need sleep..._

She pulled herself to her feet and began rummaging through her pack, looking for a lighter. They would have to make a fire to re-heat the thermoses, before they began their hunt, which would no doubt be a great deal of fun, since the ground was completely sodden. Even the _air_ felt wet, like breathing soup.

She did a double-take when she noticed that Ranma was sitting beside Ukyou, in the same lotus position, surrounded by a faintly glowing blue aura.

"Am I the only one who actually slept?" she muttered. She stood up to go search for some brush dry enough to start a fire.

* * *

The five of them did not actually set off until the sun was well up into the sky. Because the rain had made the ground so soft, Mousse's footsteps were easy to track, and they made good time as they trekked up the rapidly ascending slope.

Ukyou, who had opted to remain in cursed form in case they had to fight Darth Mousse, led the group, blissfully unaware of the backbreaking pace she was setting. Cologne followed right behind her, hopping along deceptively quickly on her staff.

Ryoga, finally male again, made a point of focusing on Ukyou's giant body in front of him as he walked. He was fully aware that he was capable of getting lost if he let his mind wander, even though he was marching in a line with four other people.

Ranma was muttering softly to himself as he walked, his fists clenched. He seemed to be concentrating intently on something. Akane walked behind him, and watched him with concern.

By noon, they were beginning to get frustrated.

By mid-afternoon, they were bickering and complaining bitterly about the overwhelming stupidity of their current situation.

They kept pushing forward until the sun began to set, at which point the dirt underfoot abruptly changed to granite, and Mousse's tracks, of course, disappeared.

Akane stared at the rock underneath her feet, disbelievingly. "We did not just skip school to wander through the mountains all day, only to lose their tracks now," she declared, offended.

"Actually, yes, we did," Ukyou said dryly, sitting down on the stone ground. Even sitting, she was only about five inches shorter than Akane. "Shall we resume our meditation, Ran-chan?"

Ranma nodded briskly, sitting down beside her. They both assumed the lotus position, closed their eyes, and began glowing with a faint blue light.

Ryoga looked at them, puzzled. "What on Earth are you two doing? I saw you meditating this morning, too." He grinned at Ranma. "Trying to get in touch with your inner asshole?"

Ranma didn't open his eyes. "I'm disciplining my mind," he growled uninformatively. "You should join us, Akane."

Akane didn't look happy. "Ranma, shouldn't we be trying to find a way to look for Mousse?"

"So, uh, why are _you_ meditating, Ukyou?" Ryoga asked, hoping to get a slightly more descriptive answer from her.

Ukyou also didn't open her eyes. "The Khala tells us that all Protoss should meditate, for meditation strengthens the soul," she responded, equally uninformatively.

"And...uh, what is the Khala, exacty?"

Ukyou shrugged. "No idea."

Ryoga sighed, and began to set up his tent again. Akane spent a good five minutes staring daggers at the meditators, then coughed and said casually, "So, I guess I should see about making us something to eat..."

When even _that_ did not open Ranma's eyes, she knew something was very wrong indeed, but lacking any way of eliciting a response from him, instead angrily dragged Ryoga off with her to gather firewood.

* * *

Fortunately, Ryoga had about a week's worth of provisions in his pack (he _always_ had about a week's worth of provisions in his pack, for those frequent unanticipated journeys he tended to be susceptible to), so they had a fulfilling dinner of instant ramen noodles and cups of very, very warm water.

"So," Akane said, slurping her noodles down, "how exactly are we planning on finding Mousse?"

Cologne stared into the fire impassively. "We may not have to. I suspect that now that we're out here in the middle of nowhere, he may find us, instead."

Ryoga grunted. "Wonderful. So he's going to show up in the middle of the night and gun us down in our sleep?"

"Just set a watch," Ukyou suggested, having returned to human form to eat. She was not quite certain how zealots ate, or if they even needed to eat, given their conspicuous lack of a mouth. "That's the best way to avoid zergling raids, I've found. Should work just as well for Mousse."

Ryoga considered asking her what zerglings were, but decided it would probably be a waste of breath. "Ukyou and Ranma could take the watch," he said, grinning. He looked over at Ranma, who had not even broken from his meditation for dinner. "They don't sleep, anyway."

Ukyou shrugged. "Fine by me. My zealot body doesn't seem to get tired." She finished the last of her noodles with a great deal of relish, then doused herself with a canteen of cold water. "I'll take the watch tonight."

* * *

Ukyou watched Ranma with her bright golden eyes. He was still meditating. She was not certain why it was that he had taken to meditating with such ferocity; he had only said that it might help with his new curse. She had been hoping, on some very pathetic level, that if she meditated with him, it might in some way bring them closer together, but he had paid no attention to her, focusing all his attention inward, instead.

She sighed. _Sometimes I feel like I couldn't ever love him more,_ she reflected, staring into the dying fire, _and sometimes I feel like he's just slipping through my fingers..._

It was well past midnight when she sensed something behind her, and she rolled to the side just in time to avoid a flying bucket of steaming hot water. She spun to face her opponent, and a second bucket glanced off her shields harmlessly, sending it spinning to the ground. Its contents drenched her.

"Shit," she cursed, feeling herself shrink back to human form. She unslung her big-ass spatula from her shoulder. "Wake up! Wake up!" she shouted, before Mousse appeared before her, smiling. She brought her spatula in front of her to parry his attack, but the incredible force of his sidehanded swipe with a very large spiked maul sent her crashing into a tree. She climbed to her feet, tossing the ruined pieces of her big-ass spatula to the side.

Cologne perched on her staff behind Mousse, a hard expression on her ancient features. "Mousse! Where is my great-granddaughter?"

Mousse chuckled. "She has proven...troublesome," he growled. "But she will break soon enough, old woman."

Ranma stood up abruptly from his meditation, and Akane rolled quickly out of the tent, assuming a fighting position. Ryoga stood up, grumbling, and hefted his absurdly heavy umbrella.

"Give it up, Mousse," Ukyou grunted, spitting a bit of blood from her mouth. She wiped her lips, removing two of her small spatulas from her bandolier. She held them in her hands like knives. "You can't beat all five of us."

For a moment, no one moved.

Cologne stepped forward, with lightning speed, aiming the tip of her staff for the pressure point on the back of Mousse's neck. Mousse stepped forward slightly, just enough that her staff missed its target, then removed a small pin from his robes and tossed it at the old woman's feet. It exploded in an acrid puff of smoke.

Cologne looked down. "What-?"

The ground beneath her suddenly gave way, and she toppled into a large hole with a yelp. Mousse threw a glass sphere into the hole after her, which shattered, filling the hole with an opaque yellow mist.

Mousse smiled, hefting another sphere in his hand. "I figured you might lose my trail at the rocks here," he said, by way of explanation, "so I took the liberty of constructing a few little surprises to welcome you."

Ranma stared at him darkly. "What did you do to Cologne?"

Mousse laughed. "Just a little knock-out gas. Don't worry, though, as soon as we're done here, I'll give the old woman something much more potent."

Akane stepped forward, in a fighting stance. Mousse tossed another pin at her feet, which exploded, but Akane quickly jumped to the side before the ground gave way beneath her. "You-" she began, starting to charge towards him. He removed a bucket of water from his robes and sent it spinning towards her with one smooth motion. It smashed into her chest.

"Oww!" Akane whined, attempting to fix her sopping wet hair. "That, like, totally _hurt_!"

"Two down," Mousse observed, smiling, shifting deftly to avoid Ryoga's charging umbrella swipe, then cursing loudly as Ranma's foot slammed into his jaw. He crashed to the ground on his back, then quickly rolled back to his feet, parrying Ranma's roundhouse with his maul. Ryoga aimed a crushing umbrella strike at his exposed right leg, Mousse was quicker, and it bounced off his armored forearm with a metallic clang.

Mousse inched backwards, his eyes unfocused, watching his two adversaries warily.

Ranma licked his lips. _How did he know about Akane's valley girl curse?_ he wondered nervously, never taking his eyes off Mousse. _Does he know about mine, too?_

Ukyou, quick and silent, crept closer to Ryoga's pack.

Suddenly, Mousse leapt to the side, landing between Ukyou and Ryoga's pack, unleashing a furious hail of blows with his maul. She staggered backwards, trying unsuccessfully to knock the attacks aside with her small spatulas, which were pitifully unsuited to the task.

"Ukyou!" Ranma shouted, running towards her. _Well,_ he thought, resigned, _I guess the genie's out of the bottle already, might as well at least use the thing..._ He pulled his arms up in front of him, assuming a ghost-like stance, and vanished. Mousse spun and raised his maul in confusion as the White Snake Venom Reliable Fist sent waves of pain shooting up his back. He roared in agony, falling flat on his stomach, and looked up just in time to see the air ripple in front of him as Ryoga's Shishi Houkoudan slammed into his face.

He began to get up, slowly, so Ranma stepped toward him and thrust-kicked him savagely in the side. He twisted helplessly in mid-air, crashing to the rocky ground with an unceremonious thud.

Ukyou watched him warily. She pulled a thermos of hot water from Ryoga's pack. "Is that it?"

"You are skilled," Mousse rumbled, staggering to his feet. "But we will soon see who is the true master, here." He thrust a finger at Ranma, grimacing. "Prepare yourself!"

Ranma didn't remove his eyes from him. "Ryoga, Ukyou, watch for those explodin' pins."

Mousse removed a chain-gun from his robes.

Ryoga stared at it for a moment. "Shit."

Ranma snatched up Akane's wide-eyed form and jumped out of the way. They all scattered hastily behind nearby boulders as Mousse began to rip up the terrain with his giant chain-gun.

After about ten seconds, the horrible cacophony stopped.

Ranma let himself breathe again.

Ukyou chanced a look out from behind her rock. "You think he's...out of bullets?" she suggested, tightening her grip on the thermos.

Ryoga began to say something, then looked down in alarm. There was an acrid puff of smoke rising between his feet. He jumped backwards just in time to receive a bucket of freezing water in the face, then rolled to the side awkwardly as a wickedly sharp spear embedded itself in the tree behind her.

Ranma bounded swiftly over his rock, doing a full twisting flip in mid-air to avoid a flying bucket of cold water, and punched Mousse in the face. Mousse staggered back with a grunt. Ranma stepped forward and punched him again. Then again, and again, and again, brutal and quick as lightning bolts. Mousse began to fall back, then suddenly turned his insensate fall into a roll, tossing another bucket of water at the suddenly terrified Ranma, drenching him.

"NOO-" he began to scream, then his scream abruptly turned into a little giggle. "Like, what's going _on_?" the boy-turned-ditz asked, looking around vapidly.

Mousse snorted back laughter and turned to face Ryoga and Ukyou.

"When the hell did Mousse get so good?" Ryoga muttered, removing a few bandannas from her forehead and spinning them in her hand. They blurred and began to whine like buzzsaws.

Ukyou watched Mousse angrily. "I could take him in a second if I could get ahold of some cold water."

"Yeah, you're pretty useless in human form," Ryoga agreed, cracking a slight smile.

Ukyou smiled back unpleasantly. "Go to hell, lost girl."

Mousse removed three more pins from his robes and hurled them at the two girls, who leapt backwards to avoid the gaping holes that opened in the ground where they landed. He grinned evilly and removed a chainsaw from his robes.

Ukyou stared at the whirring chain in disbelief. "You have got to be kidding me."

He laughed and charged at Ukyou, who stumbled to the side, obviously unnerved by the thought of trying to parry a chainsaw with her tiny spatulas. Ryoga dashed forward, trying to flank him so she could blast him with the Shishi Houkoudan; it wouldn't be much use if she hit him in the back and he flew straight into Ukyou, chainsaw and all.

Suddenly, Ranma screamed. Not the pathetic frightened scream they might have expected, but a terrifying, soul-curdling banshee's wail. Mousse broke off his attack and stared at her in surprise. "What...?"

Ranma's face was twisted into an expression of hatred. "Oh...my...gawd..." she snarled, every muscle in her body taut. Her entire body was glowing with a faint blue aura. "You can fucking, like, totally go to hell, Mousse!" she screamed, crouching over, her arms crossed in front of her chest. "VALLEY GIRL HELLFIRE BLAST!"

Mousse just stared in astonishment as a huge, swirling vortex of pitch-black energy slammed brutally into his side. He flew almost one hundred feet through the air in a completely straight line before crashing into a giant oak tree. He hit the tree so hard it actually cracked and began to fall behind him. He slumped to the ground, breathing raggedly. His robes were badly scorched on the side he had been hit.

Ranma giggled. "Fer shure!" she yipped gleefully, grinning. "Come back for more and I'll, like, totally stomp your fucking face in, you bastard!"

Ryoga stared at her, eyes wide. "Where did _that_ come from?"

Ranma smiled sweetly and shrugged. "Like, I dunno!"

Ukyou assessed the situation. "An angry, yet sickeningly sweet valley girl who cusses like a sailor with the capability to unleash massive ki attacks..."

Ryoga blinked. "Ranma," she said, realization slowly dawning on her, "you're...an asshole again."

"A valley girl asshole," Ukyou agreed. She looked horrified.

Ranma giggled girlishly. "Go fuck yourselves," she retorted, with a cute smile.

The three of them looked back to see that Mousse had somehow managed to clamber back to his feet. "This...isn't...over..." he wheezed, clenching his fists.

Ukyou stepped towards him, thermos in hand. "It's over, Mousse."

Mousse smiled darkly. "Think so?" He leapt into the air, doing a slightly wobbly backflip and landing behind a boulder.

Ukyou watched him disappear behind the rock uncertainly. "What is he-?"

Ryoga yelped in alarm, then jumped on top of the rock just in time to see Mousse fleeing back down the hillside, a helplessly flailing Akane slung over his shoulder. "God dammit," she swore, as she dashed after them.

* * *

Jim Raynor walked down the deserted street casually, trying his best to look inconspicuous. Hindering his valiant attempts were the enormous gauss rifle he carried in one hand, the even more enormous flame thrower in his other hand, the bulky space armor of a Marine, and the fact that his companions were all over seven feet tall and obviously aliens.

He focused on the heads-up display in his helmet. 4:55 AM, local time, the display read. About an hour until sunrise, and exactly three hours before Recall time.

"WE HAVE NEARLY REACHED DANIMOTH'S COORDINATES," Mojo the Scout informed him, and half the surrounding district. He stared intently at the holographic display projected from his left gauntlet.

"Mojo!" Jim hissed, grimacing. "Don't you Protoss know the meaning of 'quiet?'"

Mojo looked embarrassed and tried to walk silently, which meant that he, not to mention the rest of the Protoss warriors with them, thundered down the street like a herd of rampaging elephants. They had been a mixed force when they set out on Shakuras, but of Jim's surviving eleven, nine were the Protoss warriors called Zealots, psi-blade wielding armored infantry who could run much faster than a tank, absorb massive amounts of punishment, and who lacked even the slightest inkling of how to move quietly. The tenth, Mojo, was a fighter pilot without a ship, which, as far as Jim could tell, basically made him useless. He had given Mojo the spare shotgun he usually kept strapped to his back, and Mojo had shown about as much aptitude for operating human weapons as he had for walking quietly.

The final member of their troupe was a Dark Templar, who was actually able to bend light around himself, rendering him almost invisible, save for the vague shimmering of the air where he moved. Naturally, he was quite adept at moving around undetected, and seemed vaguely displeased at his companions' lack of stealth.

Jim looked down a sidestreet, and met the horrified eyes of a young man wearing a leather jacket and camouflage pants.

* * *

Ryu was out for a pleasant early morning stroll, content with the thought that the day on which he would finally crush Ranma Saotome had arrived. He had been up the entire night practicing the White Snake Venom Reliable Fist, but he eventually decided that enough was enough.

He was ready to rumble.

"Ranma Saotome..." he mumbled to himself, grinning maniacially. He crushed a stone in his hand effortlessly. "Today is the day you DIE!"

The phrase 'My name is Inigo Montoya,' popped into his head, unbidden. He forced it back out with a scowl, and took in a long breath of the clean morning air.

He stopped. There was a man in a very large suit of armor crossing the street in front of him.

Behind him was an entire column of the armored monsters that had humiliated him at the Ucchan.

"Holy shit," he said, staring.

* * *

"Um, hey there," Jim greeted the stunned young man with what he hoped was a reassuring grin. "We're just...uh..."

The young man stared for another few seconds, then turned and ran like the whole Swarm was on his heels.

Mojo shook his head, baffled. "The inhabitants of this world are very strange," he remarked, turning his attention to his coordinate readout again.

* * *

Kuno stared feverishly at the giant posters on his wall. In addition to his traditional collection of semi-perverted photos of Akane Tendo and the pigtailed goddess, previously vacant spots on his wall now featured life-size, full-color likenesses of Ukyou Kuonji and Ryoko the Bandanna Girl.

He closed his eyes and clenched his fists in fury. "It is too much!" he wailed, clutching his head in agony. "How can I decide when there are four such beauteous goddesses who vie for my love?"

He stood up abruptly and grabbed his bokken. "But, lest I forget, today..." he intoned, trying a practice cut. "Today I, Tatewaki Kuno, have other things with which I must concern myself." He had employed his network of spies and ninja - and Nabiki Tendo - to discover all they could about Ukyou and this new girl, this mysterious, strangely alluring Ryoko. Ukyou, he had discovered, to his horror, was already spoken for by that sorcerous cur Saotome!

On Ryoko they could find nothing. It seemed she had appeared one day, and vanished the next...as if by magic. No doubt it was the magic of that accursed Saotome, who had similarly imprisoned his pigtailed goddess in some evil enchantment.

Nabiki had also informed him that, if he doused himself with her patented Righteous Samurai Water (a bargain at 10,000 yen a bottle), he would become an invincible warrior of light, to strike down such creatures of darkness! He picked up the bottle of Nabiki's water, which had 'Dasani' crudely scribbled out with a sharpie on its side, and emptied its contents on himself.

He shook with rage as he felt himself begin the glorious transformation. Today...today was the day that he would _smite_ Saotome, at last!

* * *

At a dead run, it still took them until dawn to reach the bottom of the hill, and Mousse had managed to stay one step ahead of them the entire time. Since all of their water was (purposely) scalding hot, they had managed to return Ranma and Ryoga to male form, but had no way of transforming Ukyou into her really-fast-runner zealot form.

A young, happy-looking couple, dressed in vacationing clothes, was parked by the side of the road, standing outside their brand-new imported Corvette as they eagerly snapped pictures of the gorgeous mountain vista behind them. Mousse dashed up to their car, pitched the pitifully struggling Akane in through the open driver's window, then slid himself into the driver's seat.

He laughed evilly. "FOOLS!" he thundered. "Only _imbeciles_ leave their keys in the car!"

"Hey!" the young man said, shocked, as Mousse gunned the engine and roared off. "What the-!"

Ranma, Ryoga, and Ukyou burst from the woods just in time to see him speed off.

Ukyou panted, gritting her teeth. "Not. This. Again."

Ranma pulled a thermos from Ryoga's pack. "Think this is cold enough yet?" he asked, gingerly dipping his finger into it.

Ryoga shrugged, breathing hard. "Might as well try it."

The young couple looked on in astonishment as Ukyou transformed.

"Climb on," Ukyou offered, bending down. _Way_ down.

Ryoga stared at her. "What...?"

"I said, _climb on_," she boomed, pointing to her huge frame.

Ranma and Ryoga hesitated for a moment, then scrambled up onto her heavily armored shoulders awkwardly.

Ukyou stopped to pose for a couple of pictures for the suddenly delighted couple, then charged after the Corvette, running at approximately 70 miles per hour.

* * *

Darth Mousse offered his hostage a sinister chuckle, slamming on the gas. He was determined not to crash this time, and, he reasoned, there was less chance of him crashing if he got there faster!

Where 'there' was anywhere away from the nine-foot-tall monstrosity keeping pace with a Corvette going 75...80...85 miles per hour.

He scowled. "Accursed machine!" he raged, putting the accelerator all the way to the floor. "FASTER!"

"Ohmy_gawd_!" Akane shrieked, cowering in the passenger's seat. "Like, why are you _doing_ this?"

He jerked the steering wheel to the side as he merged onto the giant highway leading to Tokyo, then slammed on the gas again. 100...105...110...

He stared in the rearview mirror in disbelief.

* * *

"YA EVER THOUGHT OF RUNNIN' TRACK, UCCHAN?" Ranma screamed inquisitively, hanging on to her shoulder plate for dear life.

* * *

At 6:56 AM, they got far enough into the suburban districts of Tokyo that traffic started to back up.

Mousse laughed evilly. "Well," he rumbled, veering off into the shoulder, continuing to go 120 miles per hour, "who needs roads, anyway?"

Suddenly, there was an bridge over another road right in front of him, with no shoulder.

"CURSES!" he roared, as the Corvette sailed off the overpass.

* * *

Ukyou watched the Corvette fly off the overpass with disbelief, then tensed her massive legs and bounded down to the lower road with one huge jump.

Mousse's car did a complete barrel roll in mid-air, then landed on two wheels, teetered dangerously, and somehow found its balance again. Three other cars behind where he landed slammed on their brakes, but the people behind them didn't, beginning a massive pile-up in the heavy early-morning traffic. Ukyou landed in front of a speeding luxury sedan that hit its brakes a little too late, nearly splitting the hood completely in half. Ukyou paid it about as much attention as she would have paid to a particularly ferocious attack by a gnat, then dashed after the Corvette again.

* * *

Darth Mousse raged to himself as he weaved in and out of traffic, clipping every third car viciously and generating about a hundred calls to the police complaining of hit-and-runs. "What does it take to LOSE these fools?" he snarled. He saw a gap in the trees on the small hill alongside the road, and jerked the wheel to the side. "How about THIS!"

The Corvette's tires left long rubber trails on the asphalt as he peeled out, power sliding half the way up the hill and finding, much to his dismay, that there was a really long drop on the other side.

"EEEEK!" Akane wailed.

* * *

Ukyou jumped over the precipice and abruptly discovered the same thing.

"Shit," Ryoga said, closing his eyes and holding on.

Ranma looked at the ground below them, puzzled. "Hey," he said, curious, "isn't this..."

* * *

Ryu stood in the field outside of Furinkan High School, his arms folded across his chest. A couple dozen students were already milling about the perimeter of the field inquisitively, having heard that Ranma was supposed to duel someone here today.

He smiled to himself, then looked up in alarm as a very large, very threatening figure came marching onto the field.

"It is TIME," the armored monster declared, holding an absurdly tiny bokken in its gauntleted hands. "I, Tatewaki Kuno, the Light Warrior of Furinkan High School, will destroy that foul sorcerer Saotome this day!"

Ryu scowled at him. "I don't know who the hell you are," he growled, clenching his fists. "But Saotome is _mine_ today! Not even _you_ will take him from me, monster-spatula-girl!" He thought he heard a faint, but rapidly getting less faint, whirring sound behind him. Like...a car. But there was only a large hill behind him... "What...?"

The Kuno-monster stepped forward, brandishing its tiny bokken, when it was suddenly flattened by a smoking heap of a Corvette. Its windshield cracked, one of its windows burst, and three of its wheels popped off when it landed, and it slid halfway off Kuno's prone form with an awful creak. It groaned and hissed as steam and smoke poured out from the hood, and, after a long moment, the driver's side door popped open. A long-haired Chinese guy with a chainsaw in his hands stepped out of the car, glowing with an evil fury.

A second giant figure landed beside the ruined Corvette, the force of its landing blasting a small crater in the ground. Ryu recognized this one.

"You..." he growled. Then he saw two figures sprawled out, dazed, on the armored monster's shoulders. And these two he was _certain_ he recognized.

He smiled. "Hello, Ranma."

* * *

Jim rounded the corner. "A...school?" he wondered, gazing around apprehensively. Students were beginning to congregate around his very unusual group.

"The Recall coordinates are only 100 feet away!" Mojo declared, pointing in the direction of a field beside the school.

Jim hefted his gauss rifle grimly. "Let's go, boys," he drawled. "And be ready for anything. No tellin' what kinda shit Kerrigan'll try to pull."


	5. Party at Ground Zero

Part 5: Party at Ground Zero

Ryu smirked. "So, I see you've brought your monstrous friend to defend you, Ranma."

Ranma stared at him, confused. "What...?"

"Don't play the fool with me!" Ryu snarled, sinking into a fighting stance. "Today is the day of our duel, have you forgotten?"

Ranma blinked. "Actually...yeah."

Mousse, meanwhile, hauled a barely conscious Akane out of the smouldering wreck, draped her over his shoulder quietly and began to sneak off.

Ranma growled at him. "Hold it! Drop Akane right now, Mousse."

Ryoga spun his umbrella in his hand like a buzzsaw. "It's for your own good, Mousse." A deep concern for Mousse's intestines was written plainly on his face.

"YOU WILL NOT TURN YOUR BACK ON ME, RANMA SAOTOME!" Ryu raged. "TURN AND FIGHT ME!"

Ranma turned around, exasperated. "Ryu, now's not the-"

Ryu roared and loosed an enormous crescent-shaped vacuum blast at Ranma. Ranma crossed his hands in front of him and negated it easily with his own Moko Takabisha, but he noticed, too late, that Ryu had vanished. "What-?" He began to spin around in alarm, then felt a string of brutal punches pound his back.

Ryu laughed, reappearing again six feet behind Ranma. Ranma collapsed to the ground. "The Thousand Sea Fist is mine, now, Ranma! You don't stand a chan-"

Ukyou hit him.

It's one thing to take a glancing hit from an attack that can blow through eight-inch-thick reinforced tank armor, even if it sends you flying all the way across the room, and quite another to get caught flat-footed and clocked cleanly in the jaw. Ryu reflected, in sort of a daze as his body crumpled and his head smashed into the ground, that he hadn't ever quite experienced pain like that before.

Ryoga charged at Mousse, bellowing and swinging his fifty-pound umbrella at Mousse's fleeing form like it weighed nothing at all. Mousse spun around, pulled a .45 magnum from his robes and took a few potshots at Ryoga, who opened his massively heavy umbrella and held it before him like a shield. Seeing the futility of trying to penetrate Ryoga's apparently invulnerable umbrella, Mousse aimed at Ukyou, instead, who stared at him intently with her burning silver-gold eyes as her invisible shields vaporized the bullets effortlessly.

Kuno the Zealot pulled himself to his feet, lifted the ruined Corvette with one huge three-fingered hand, and sliced it savagely in half with a single chop of his psi-enhanced bokken. His eyes blazed as he turned around to look for Ranma. "PREPARE YOURSELF, SAOTOME!" he boomed, sliding into a formal kendo stance, then dashing at Ranma.

Ryoga spun his umbrella deftly in his hands, then popped it open and sent it spinning through the air at Kuno, who dodged it in stride. Ryu and Ranma both managed to stagger to their feet as well, all thoughts of their duel forgotten as they stared at the enormous monster barrelling towards them at about 50 miles per hour.

"Abominations!" Darth Mousse thundered, dropping his gun and pulling out two Super Soakers filled with scalding hot water. Ukyou advanced towards him, cautiously watching the water guns.

"Who the hell _are_ these monsters?" Ryu said, jumping out of the raging Kuno Zealot's way just in time for his face to receive Ryoga's umbrella on its return arc. He landed on his knees, then ground his teeth together, furious, then roared as he stood back up, rapidly spinning himself around and tossing off multiple vacuum blasts indiscriminately.

One of the flying vacuum blades sheared clean through the tank of Mousse's larger Super Soaker, sending the high-pressure water bursting out, drenching Mousse and Akane. Ukyou rolled to the side, barely staying dry.

Mousse stared in shock. "Dear God...what have I done?"

"I hate my life," Akane said, for the record.

Ranma tried without much success to dodge all of Ryu's blasts as he fled from Kuno, sprinting in a long spiral pattern around Kuno as he charged. _A little more...a little more..._

Kuno leapt at him, bokken blazing with psi energy.

Ranma came to an abrupt halt and thrust his fist skyward. "HIRYUU SHOUTEN HA!"

Kuno howled with rage as he was sucked up into the giant whirlwind.

* * *

Jim looked over the treetops toward the open field and licked his lips nervously. It was almost time.

Suddenly, large numbers of the aforementioned trees were blasted to pieces by something very loud on the other side, and about five seconds later, a huge tornado erupted from the ground.

"Kerrigan," he grumbled, motioning to Mojo. _She can create magic tornados now. Wonderful._

Mojo stared at the tornado in shock. "Is that...a Zealot?" He pointed.

Jim stared. It _was_ a Zealot, soaring high up into the air, caught helplessly in the whirlwind's grip. "What the hell..." He hefted his guns, scowling. Had more of his soldiers made it through the warp gate somehow, and then trekked here to the Recall coordinates?

The air around the Dark Templar shimmered as he began to walk forward. "I'm waiting," he rasped, his fiery orange eyes glowing faintly when he spoke.

Mojo nodded. "We must go save that Protoss!"

Jim grunted. He switched on his flamethrower, and began to run towards the field. "Let's go, boys."

* * *

Ukyou noticed them first.

The man in the giant suit of armor tromped grimly onto the field, followed shortly by ten beings who looked...very much like herself. And there was an eleventh, whose presence she did not so much see as feel. Something about him felt...wrong, in a way she couldn't quite describe.

She stopped trying to dodge Ryu's frenetic vacuum blasts, instead absorbing them harmlessly in her invisible shields, and stared. She was vaguely aware of the chaos around her: Ryu's endless vacuum blasts, Kuno bellowing helplessly as he flew to the sky in Ranma's tornado, dozens of Ryoga's razor-sharp bandannas whirling through the air... Ten pairs of brightly glowing alien eyes stared back.

"En taro Adun," she said, almost involuntarily, saluting the small troupe with a gauntleted hand, and was strangely gratified to watch the alien warriors salute her in return.

The human snapped his visor back. "What's happenin' here?" he demanded, his enormous pair of guns held rigidly in his armored hands. He surveyed the destruction taking place in the field with annoyance and confusion. "You're not one o' my men. Who the hell are you? How'd you get here?"

She stopped, confused. "I'm, uh...Ukyou."

She was suddenly aware of the eyes of the strange, shimmering being raking violently across her, and took a step back, adopting a guarded stance.

"Ukyou." The being watched her impassively, his halfway visible eyes like pools of fire. "That is not a Protoss name."

She met his gaze, unflinching. "Um, yes, that's true. Who are you?"

"I am called Zeratul." He had a deep, rasping voice, and there was something almost like fear in it. "Is this what Duran warned us of? I can see that your aura is not that of a Protoss, in spite of the form you bear..."

She wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. _How do I even begin to explain...?_ she wondered, sighing. "I'm...well, uh..."

Zeratul reached a strangely corporeal hand toward her, and spoke a sudden word of command.

And Ukyou screamed.

* * *

Ranma stumbled out of the vanishing remains of the tornado, watching balefully as Kuno's battered, alien form crashed back to the Earth.

"Figures Kuno'd get the massive-alien-warrior powerup water," he muttered, scowling, "and I'd get the valley girl water."

Ukyou's scream brought him back to reality, just in time to spin out of the way of the last of Ryu's wild vacuum blasts. Two of Ryoga's bandannas left nasty welts as they brushed off his shoulders. He scrambled hastily out of the way, trying to see exactly where Ukyou's scream had come from...

Mousse was on his knees beside the slowly burning shell of the Corvette. He looked like he was in shock. Akane had left his suddenly only-moderately-evil clutches to help Ryoga fight Ryu, an unwieldy-looking ball-and-chain (pilfered from Mousse's vast arsenal) about three times the size of her head spinning in her hand as she dodged Ryu's blasts. There was an uncustomary fury on her face, and she was moving faster than Ranma had ever seen her move before.

Ryu whirled unsteadily to a halt, and Ryoga took advantage of his momentary confusion to bash him cleanly upside the head with his umbrella. Ryu staggered, and for a second it looked like he might fall, but then he suddenly composed himself and vanished.

A little smile alit on Ryoga's lips as he twisted around, swinging his umbrella in a brutal arc at the empty space behind him. It met Ryu's abruptly-visible head with a sharp _crack_.

Ryoga grinned, his fangs showing. "I've been hit with that stupid thing one too many times."

_Ukyou...where's Ukyou?_ Ranma looked around wildly, then saw her, on the other side of the burning Corvette, on her knees, somehow in human form again.

And there seemed to be an entire squad of Kuno-Ukyou-zealot-monsters standing right next to her.

Ranma began running toward her.

* * *

Jim watched the scene unfolding before him, baffled. What was Zeratul doing? It looked almost like he was casting a Hallucination spell, but it was different, somehow, and suddenly the Zealot warrior standing before him was a human woman, on her knees, gasping in pain.

Zeratul turned away from the woman, warp blades humming softly. "Nydus," he said, softly.

"Zeratul!" Jim shouted, watching the woman before him with concern. Where had she come from? This didn't make sense. She was very pretty, he couldn't help noticing, in kind of an exotic way, with her gray-green hair and almost glowing silver-gold eyes... He looked more closely. In fact, her eyes were _literally_ glowing. "Darlin'...uh, are you...alright...?"

"Nydus," Zeratul said again, staring towards the trees in horror.

Then Jim, and Mojo, and all the others, veterans of a hundred battles with the Zerg, seemed to notice all at once what Zeratul was saying, and the strange, organic sucking sound quietly emanating from the trees.

* * *

Ranma reached Ukyou just as the alien troupe surrounding her collectively flipped out and started charging frantically towards the woods on the other side of the field. He stopped, stared.

It was Ukyou, there was no doubt...but her hair had somehow changed from dark brown to an almost metallic gray-green shot through with streaks of white, and her skin had acquired a strange golden hue. She looked up at him, and her eyes burned silver-and-gold almost the way they had in her cursed form.

"Ucchan...what..."

She watched him for a moment, then a tear dropped from her weirdly glowing eyes. "Ran-chan..."

They were interrupted by the sound of shouting and gunfire from the really, really large guns the man in the enormous suit of armor was carrying. Ranma looked behind him in alarm, then confusion as he noticed that the man and one of his alien friends with a shotgun were blasting away into the woods, accompanied by the sounds of ten pissed off and extremely desperate alien warriors pounding on...something.

Ukyou stood up, her eyes blazing. "It's a nydus canal," she said softly.

"The hell's a nydus canal?" Ranma demanded, slightly unnerved.

She turned to face him, and something in her strange silver-gold eyes made him very, very afraid. She smiled. "It's the gateway to hell, Ran-chan. Or close enough." She cracked her knuckles, and softly humming psi blades tore away the ends of her sleeves as they descended from her forearms. "We'd better go help them."

* * *

Two seconds.

Jim silently cursed the ammo-conservation pulse firing of his Gauss rifle as he launched another rocket-propelled fragmentation grenade at the hideously pulsating growth in the ground before him. It tore and bled as the bullets and shrapnel ripped through it, and his eleven companions showered it with everything they had. Zeratul's warp blades contorted the space around them as he dealt out blows that could nearly take out a tank with a single swipe.

Three seconds.

His knuckles were white on the triggers of his flame thrower and pulse rifle. It wasn't enough, wasn't enough, they weren't going to be able to kill it in time, even with Zeratul here he knew it would take them at least five seconds to destroy the horribly mutating structure, but it was throbbing, beating, a monstrous heart in the Earth before them, and it was going to finish before they could kill it...

Four seconds.

And then the structure was complete. Small fountains of cherry red blood poured from its sides, but the structure was complete, the nydus canal was complete, and Jim stared in horror at the ghostly green light emanating from the canal's interior, its mouth gaping wide and hungry...

Too late. A pair of hydralisks materialized in the terrible green light. Too late. Another pair of hydralisks, then six zerglings, then an ultralisk, then a defiler, then five more hydralisks...

Five seconds.

The nydus canal exploded in a shower of blood.

Jim began firing at the Zerg. This was going to be ugly.

* * *

Ryoga turned his focus for a moment from Ryu to the alien shouts, explosions, and gunfire coming from the edge of the nearby woods just in time to see the enormous geyser of blood erupt from the ground.

Akane was already staring. "What in the world...?"

Ryu began to shout, "An opening-!", but stopped as he caught sight of the blood.

It even seemed to shake Mousse from his stupor, and he climbed unsteadily to his feet. "Do my eyes deceive me...or is that a twenty-foot tall fountain of blood?"

No one really had a response for that.

Ryoga looked over to see Ranma and a girl with crazy hair in Ukyou's clothing dashing across the field, towards the carnage in the woods. The girl was running _really_ fast.

In fact, even aside from the clothes, she kind of looked like Ukyou. Except for the glowing eyes and green hair bit.

He looked back toward the woods, and saw the half-dozen trees that had been blocking his view of events suddenly ripped to pieces by a really, really big monster with really, really, _really_ big tusks.

* * *

Ranma struggled to keep up with Ukyou as she tore across the field. He couldn't recall, off-hand, any time within the past ten years that someone had been able to run faster than him. He _knew_ Ukyou wasn't faster than he was, from having chased her down a fence when she had first arrived in Nerima...

Six trees at the front of the wooded area were cleanly sheared in half by a pair of massive, razor-sharp tusks. He kept up his dead run, staring in horror at the beast. It was a four-legged, vaguely insectile creature, easily over ten feet tall, and just as wide, with two seven-foot-long exoskeletal tusks that looked sharp enough to shave with. Four of the alien warriors that looked like Ukyou's cursed form were pounding fruitlessly on the monster, and it spun with astonishing agility to parry their blows and lay waste to the woodland around it with its huge tusks. Five more of the zealots were engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat with vicious creatures about a quarter of their size, which seemed to be composed entirely of teeth and very, very sharp claws. The zealots seemed to be getting the better of the monsters, but nine demonic-looking snake-like creatures had formed a line behind the smaller monsters and were starting to spit some kind of needle spine from their throats.

Ukyou cursed. "They're going to lose!" She jumped twenty feet up into the air, landing nimbly on the back of one of the snake-monsters. Startled, the monster bucked, trying to throw her off, but she buried her psi blades deep into its armored back, anchoring herself firmly in place. The monster snarled in pain, trying to get to the pest on its back, flailing about helplessly with its razor-edged forearms as Ukyou swung side-to-side like a cat, deftly dodging the blind attacks. She pulled herself up the eight-foot length of the snake demon and began to pound viciously on the back of its skull.

If Ranma had stopped to think, his confidence might have shaken by the fact that he was about to face something that ten copies of Ukyou's absurdly overpowered cursed form were losing to, but fortunately, being Ranma, he didn't. Brimming with confidence, he crossed his arms in front of him.

"MOKO TAKABISHA!"

* * *

Jim dared a glance up from training his guns on the rampaging ultralisk, and saw, to his astonishment, that the Zealot warrior that Zeratul had somehow transformed into a human woman had psi blades emanating from her forearms, and was perched on the shoulders of one of the hydralisks, hammering it repeatedly with her fists. Even more astonishingly, her punches seemed to actually be _hurting_ the thing. This was something that could take fifty rounds from his pulse rifle and keep dishing it out, but an unarmed human _woman_ was hurting it, using only her fists!

He was perhaps even more astonished when the young man with the pigtail did...something...with his arms, and what looked like a wrecking ball made out of highly compressed air slammed into the sides of two zerglings, knocking them cleanly off their feet. The blast itself didn't seem to really hurt the zerglings, but they were off-balance, and the zealots facing them were quick to press the advantage. Within seconds, all that remained of the two zerglings were slowly expiring masses of flesh and claw.

"NYDUS!" Zeratul roared, as his warp blades cleanly ripped a hydralisk in half.

Jim cursed. He heard the sound of gunfire from behind him, then looked with surprise to see that a short-haired girl and a long-haired boy armed with enormous machine guns were blasting away at the hydralisk line. Since they were completely unarmored humans, he silently gave thanks that the hydras considered the Zealots to be their priority target. Another human, a muscular youth in a checkered bandanna, bellowed and launched his own compressed-air wrecking ball, which plowed harmlessly into the side of the ultralisk.

He turned his attention to where Zeratul's shimmering form was going, and saw, to his horror, another nearly completed nydus canal hideously pulsating not fifty feet from where he stood. He grimaced, then turned his Gauss rifle towards the new structure, continuing to bathe the ultralisk in flames with his other gun. _How the hell is Kerrigan creating nydus canals? There's no creep here! I thought nydus canals couldn't be created on open ground..._

Zeratul and two of the Zealots were pounding desperately on the mutating structure, and Mojo dashed behind the hydralisk line to fire his borrowed shotgun at it.

Bereft of Zeratul's overwhelming force, the remaining eight hydras, four zerglings, and ultralisk began to push Jim and his remaining three warriors back. Jim saw that the Zealot-turned-woman had sheared clean through her hydralisk's throat with her psi-bladed fist, and had bounded off to help pummel the ultralisk. The hydra hissed as its life blood poured red-and-black from its throat, then slowly crumpled to the ground and expired.

The defiler. Jim looked around, startled by the thought, realizing that the defiler he had seen appear from the first nydus canal had not yet attempted any kind of magic. The defiler...where was the defiler?

Jim picked his way backwards nimbly, never losing his aim on the ultra or the nydus. He saw one Zealot take three hydralisk needle spines through the chest, give a strange yell, and disappear in a flicker of blue flame, then another Zealot disintegrate the same way as one of the ultralisk's tusks tore his body completely in two.

_The first casualties, _he thought, grimly. _But unless we can do something about these damn nydus canals, they're not gonna be the last..._

* * *

Ryoga looked to his left and saw that Ryu had joined the fray. Ryu dashed up to the tusked monstrosity, leapt up onto its back, then halfway vanished, so that he looked like a shadow. "White Snake Venom Reliable Fist revised," he growled, a strangely proud smile on his face, "WHITE SNAKE DEEP HOLE BLOW!" The ultralisk roared as a flurry of punches strong enough to effortlessly rip a person's heart out pummeled its back relentlessly. It reared, flailing its tusks furiously as it attempted to throw Ryu from its back. He managed to keep his grip for a moment, then was sent flying, twisting through the air, taking a slight glancing blow from a tusk that opened a long red gash from his shoulder to his solar plexus. One of the alien warriors took advantage of the monster's loss of concentration, dashed underneath it with blinding speed, and landed several punishing blows on its lightly armored underside. It roared with fury and pain, twisting its huge body and catching the head of the zealot on the edge of one of its tusks. He howled in agony, continuing to punch and kick the underbelly of the monster viciously even as his head was being slowly torn off by the immense force of the monster. In a moment, he disintegrated in a swirl of blue fire, and the tusked monster was reeling backward, screeching hideously as the remaining two zealots tore into its head and throat. It batted at them weakly with its tusks, then staggered, then crashed to the ground in a spray of blood and bone.

Kuno had regained his senses and was desperately fighting off two zerglings, roaring incoherently (but, for once, not all that inaccurately) about demons and sorcery as he laid about him with his absurdly tiny bokken. Ranma was circling around the back of the zerglings as Kuno took them head-on, dancing in and pummeling them with hundreds of impossibly fast punches, then slipping back out, weaving through the zerglings' defenses effortlessly.

Ryoga ran towards the horribly pulsing structure that was growing larger before his eyes, despite the constant barrage of attacks it was enduring, then stopped, stared, as the...thing suddenly completed its transformation, and a gaping hole opened into the Earth in the mouth of the structure.

"KILL IT!" the half-visible alien with the immense aura of power roared, bringing his warp blades down again and again on it, watching with savage helplessness as more and more and more of the demons pulled themselves almost languorously out of the depths of the gaping maw.

Ryoga summoned as many negative thoughts as he could on short notice - not particularly hard, given his current circumstances - and loosed a massive Shishi Houkoudan at the doorway to hell. The alien brought down his screaming warp blades one more time as the ki blast connected, and the nydus canal exploded in a huge gush of blood.

The armored man was screaming something, as he and his remaining two zealots staggered back under the continuing onslaught of the hydralisks and zerglings, staring at the freshly arrived demons with horror and hatred. Ryoga didn't understand what he was saying, but he saw Ukyou beside him, and she suddenly had a look of comprehension in her eyes.

He stared at her for a moment, shocked. The girl with the strange hair and glowing eyes...it _was _Ukyou.

He was shaken from his moment of shock by a needle spine from one of the freshly arrived snake-monsters embedding itself firmly in his shoulder. He stumbled back, avoiding three more spines that would have speared him through the chest, and rolled desperately to the side to avoid several more. He leapt to his feet, trying to ignore the searing pain shooting down his arm when he moved, and ducked behind a massive oak tree. He panted, clutched at his shoulder, gingerly stuck his head out from behind the tree to assess the situation.

Most of the freshly arrived demons seemed to be of the snake-monster variety, and there was at least ten of them, it was hard to tell exactly how many from his lousy vantage point, and-

Ukyou.

Shit.

He looked around frantically for her for a moment. _You left her out there alone! Fool, fool! She'll be killed! _Then he saw, to his astonishment, that she and the two zealots were triple-teaming one of the snake-monsters, expertly avoiding the barrages of needle spines, delivering perfectly coordinated strikes to the confused monster's vulnerable points. He watched her. She knew exactly what she was doing, he realized, with something of a shock. It was like she was running a well-practiced play with the other two zealots, and she was dodging the rapid-fire needle spines like she had been doing it her whole life.

Ryoga closed his eyes, summoning his courage. _Well, can't just leave her out there alone, can I?_

He stepped out from behind the tree.

* * *

"THE DEFILER!" Jim screamed, turning his flame thrower toward where the insectile defiler was half-hidden behind the hydralisk line. He wasn't sure how he knew it, but he was somehow absolutely certain that the defiler was working some kind of magic to allow the nydus canals to appear. "KILL THE DEFILER!"

The defiler looked directly at him, and he realized with horror that it also held command over the other Zerg. The remaining six hydras in the first line turned to face him, lithe and deadly. He roared, training both of his guns on the defiler and firing.

Needle spines began to pelt his armor. Two, three. Four. He tried without much success to dodge, keeping his guns trained doggedly on the defiler. He wouldn't be able to take more than a couple more of those before his armor failed completely, and then he was a dead man. _I might be goin' down, but I'm takin' you with me._

The short-haired girl had circled around to the back of the hydra line, and the defiler was taking a rough beating from her machine gun, as well. Jim half-smiled. _Almost dead yet?_

And then the air shimmered beside the defiler, and it turned its hideous head up just as Zeratul brought his warp blades down. They bit cleanly through bone and flesh, and then suddenly, the defiler's control was gone, and the hydralisks turned away from Jim and toward Zeratul. Dark templar. Priority target. Zeratul's fiery orange eyes burned with defiance and hatred as they began to spit their needle spines at him.

"Zeratul!" Mojo shouted, blasting the hydras fruitlessly with his shotgun. The short-haired girl and long-haired guy both continued to shower the hydra line with bullets, but they might as well have been shooting BB's for all the damage they seemed to be doing.

Zeratul leapt forward with the speed and grace of a panther, burying his warp blades in the chest of one of the hydralisks, killing it instantly. He tore his blades out, spun to face another one of the monsters, and a needle spine lanced through his ribcage. He snarled, swung his warp blades again, cleaving the monster before him almost in half. Two more needle spines pierced his midsection. He stumbled. One through the stomach, one through his leg, one through his shoulder, one through his throat.

Mojo reloaded.

Zeratul gasped, and vanished in the vague wisp of pale fire that was the way the Dark Templar died.

Jim looked around him, forcing down the panic rising in his throat as the suddenly masterless pack of thirteen remaining hydralisks began to hunt, and watched with horror as two ultralisks pulled themselves out of the wreckage of the second nydus canal. He had four Zealots still alive: two were in front of him, pounding on the three hydras remaining from the original line, and two were fighting alongside the Zealot-turned-human-girl and looked about to be making a finish of one of the hydras. Two muscular young men, one with a bandanna and the other in camouflage, looked like they were trying to join up with the Zealots, weaving their way through stray needle fire. A fifth Zealot, the one that had been caught in the tornado earlier, was butchering a zergling with a wooden stick, aided by the young man with the pigtail.

Five Zealots, a few unusually powerful humans, and a completely useless Mojo against thirteen hydralisks and two ultralisks.

Also known as 'suicide.'

"FALL BACK!" he bellowed, laying down suppressing fire as the two Zealots before him disengaged and began to retreat.

* * *

When the defiler died, Kerrigan's control over her forces was severed, and the suddenly masterless pack of hydralisks and ultralisks had, for the first time in their entire existences, a choice about what to do next.

Hydralisks are vicious and sadistic as a rule, and, if left to their own devices, generally just like to kill as many things as possible. Engaging in a pitched battle with a squad of cunning, battle-hardened Zealots (who, to make things worse, did not even have the courtesy to leave corpses behind when they died) was not something they really wanted to do if they could help it.

Ultralisks, similarly, are really quite stupid, and pretty much only get enjoyment from wreaking havoc with their massive tusks. Again, fighting Zealots and oddly nimble humans gave them very little bang for their buck in this regard, since a lot of effort was wasted flailing about and hitting nothing in particular.

So, the pack of ravening Zerg, seeing the Protoss suddenly falling back, collectively decided to let the Protoss do as they pleased, and charged off in the other direction to cause as much death and mayhem as possible.

* * *

Ranma heard the armored man's call for retreat, then noticed, to his astonishment, that the remaining monsters also seemed to be disengaging. He and Kuno stood, dumbfounded, over the corpses of the two zerglings, and watched the two groups run off in opposite directions. The armored man and his alien companions were running deeper into the wooded strip, towards the school on the other side, presumably hoping to use the trees as cover for their retreat. The monsters charged off in the other direction, leaving a trail of decimated trees in their wake.

"Ranma Saotome," Kuno boomed, towering over him threateningly. "What sorcery is this?"

Ranma scowled at him. "Get it through your thick head! I'm not a sorcerer!"

Kuno hefted his tiny bokken. His eyes burned. "Do not trifle with me, Saotome."

Ranma clenched his fist. "I'm not trifling with you! What does that even mean? What's _wrong_ with you? The-" He trailed off as Akane ran up to him, carrying a very large machine gun in her hands. "Wow," he commented, "you really _are_ macho."

"Shut up, Ranma," Akane growled, shifting the gun's weight awkwardly.

Ryu walked calmly up to him, and smiled. He was bleeding from a long slash across his torso, but evidently was not bothered at all by this fact. "Ranma Saotome," he intoned menacingly. "Now that those demons have left us, I consider our truce to be at an end! Prepare to-"

Ukyou stepped behind him and sent him sprawling to the ground with a psi-enhanced shove. "This isn't the time, sugar," she said flatly.

Ryu pulled himself to his feet, smiling in a distinctly unpleasant way. "You think I won't hurt you because you're a woman," he ranted, "but I have seen through your pathetic disguise! I recognize you, in spite of your bad dye-job. You're the girl that turns into one of those alien monsters, and who _humiliated_ me at the restaurant the other day!" His face twisted with rage. "But I've got you in your human form now. EXPECT NO MERCY!"

Kuno stepped forward, bokken raised. "Honorless cur! You dare to threaten the fair Ukyou?"

Ryoga stood behind Ukyou, an expression of pain on his face as he nursed his injured shoulder. "You guys...I think we've got more important things to worry about right now..."

Ranma stepped forward, alarmed. "No! Ucchan, you'll get hur-"

Ryu paid him no mind, and charged at Ukyou. "FIERCE TIGER OPENING GATES BLOW!" He moved blindingly fast, but Ukyou was faster, twisting deftly to the side, her eyes gleaming like molten silver. She gripped his outstretched leg, pulled, and slammed her psi-enhanced fist into his face with one smooth motion, then hit him again, and again, and again in the same spot before he could react. He coughed once, vaguely, a confused look on his face, then staggered, then fell.

Ranma watched, wide-eyed. "So...uh, I see you've gotten a little better, Ucchan..."

"Guys," Akane interrupted, "I think we've got bigger worries than our sociopathic friend Ryu right now."

Ryoga nodded grimly. "Those demons, or whatever they were, were running _that_ way." He pointed in one direction, and Ranma deftly adjusted his finger so it was pointing in the direction they'd _actually _gone. Ryoga bapped Ranma over the head for form's sake. "Like I said, that way. And that's directly towards the city."

Ranma tried unsuccessfully to conceal his astonishment at Ryoga actually being (sort of) correct.

"We have to chase them," Ukyou stated blandly.

Ranma looked at her nervously. "Uh...we do?"

"You don't have to," the armored man drawled, walking towards them rapidly with his five remaining soldiers, "but the Zerg are going to lay waste to your whole city if you don't."

Akane looked lost. "'Zerg?' Who are you, anyway? Who are all these 'zealot' monsters with you? Where the hell did all those demon-things come from?"

The man smiled mirthlessly. "My name's Jim Raynor, darlin', and these 'zealot monsters' are my men." He spoke quickly, precisely, with a strange accent that they couldn't quite place. "Protoss, their race is called. Long story. And Mojo, there, he ain't a Zealot at all, just a pilot with no ship. I can't really say why we're here any more'n you can. Let's just say we don't mean to be here, and I mean to see that we leave, in exactly twelve minutes and sixteen seconds. There's a very nasty self-described queen bitch of the universe trying to either keep us here or kill us, and we've got no intention of allowing either to happen. The queen bitch is the one that sent them monsters here to kill us. They're called the Zerg, and we've severed their control link with the queen bitch, so if memory serves, they're going to use their newfound freedom to cause about as much death and mayhem as they possibly can, and if my impression of this place's technology is at all accurate, they're gonna be able to blow up a whole lot of shit before they're brought down." He stopped to take a breath. "So. You guys have guns, somehow you have a Zealot, and you're quick enough to not get killed, seems to me. If you're willin', it'd be nice to have y'all along." He spoke to the entire group, but he was looking mostly at Ukyou.

Something steeled in Ranma's eyes, and he nodded. "We'll do it."

Ryoga cradled his wounded arm and twisted his mouth in a grim smile. His fangs showed. "Sure, what could be more fun?"

Ukyou's eyes blazed. "We long for combat, Raynor. Let's go."

* * *

It wasn't exactly hard to follow the horde of rampaging Zerg, given that they left a trail of destruction roughly 25 meters wide wherever they went. Riding on the Zealots' backs, they were able to come within sight of the monsters just as they were finishing up the complete and total destruction of the Daitokuji financial building, as well as most of the Nerima downtown surrounding it. There were three television helicopters buzzing in the air above the carnage, one of which had its rotor torn in half by a needle spine and crashed into the wreckage even as they watched. The streets were strewn with corpses and rubble, and enormous mobs of people were fighting and clawing viciously at each other as they attempted to flee downtown by foot, motorbike, and car. Smoke and ash were pouring out of the ruin of the Daitokuji building. There were at least six vehicles that had been toppled and were on fire, although it was hard to say whether the Zerg or the mob was responsible for that.

In fact, the only people going _towards _downtown were Jim Raynor and his merry band, and they had to fight their way through the increasingly panicked mob to do it.

"What a nice little hellhole," Jim remarked, deadpan. "Reminds me of my childhood on Chau Sara."

Ranma jumped down from Kuno's shoulders. "Um, ok. So, got a plan, or are we just going to run in there and get butchered like last time?"

Jim smiled. "This time, we've got the drop on them, and the Zerg've got no control." He looked at the destruction around them, analyzing the situation. The hydralisks had split up into two packs of six, and were pressing their way further into the downtown district. One of the ultralisks was immediately in front of the hydralisk groups, and the other was gleefully shearing through the few remaining supports of the Daitokuji building. He pointed to that one. "That ultralisk. We can cut him off from the others if we circle around the back of that building. Mojo, short-haired girl, long-haired guy. And you, with the pigtail and you with the bandanna. Y'all're with me. We circle around, start shooting at the ultralisk from above ground level _there_, ya see? The ultra has to climb around that rubble to get to us, and you six Zealots will be waiting around that corner. Smash him when he gets there. He'll be exposed to our fire the whole time he's runnin' around." He looked at them. "Get me? Let's go."

Ukyou grinned at him. "_Six _Zealots?"

Jim shrugged. "Don't right know what Zeratul did to ya, darlin', but you've got psi blades and can take out a hydralisk without breakin' a sweat. Makes you a Zealot as far as I'm concerned. Now, move!"

* * *

The plan failed before they could even start. As Jim's group crept around the side of the ruined building, one of the Zealots in the other group (armed with a curiously small bokken) started moving forward too soon, and the awful racket the other Zealots made as they tried to drag him back out of sight attracted the attention of the ultralisk, who looked up from his building destruction.

"Shit," Jim swore, motioning for the others to crouch behind the stacks of rubble. He held his Gauss rifle close to his chest, looked at his flame thrower, realized it was out of juice, and dropped it to the ground.

The ultralisk shook the ground as it began to pull its way out of the shattered building's foundations.

"He's moving," Akane whispered, creeping out from behind the rubble and training her machine gun on the back of the ultralisk. She looked at Jim questioningly, and he nodded.

"FIRE!" he roared, jumping into view. The ultralisk turned around, moving impossibly fast for something so enormous, and bellowed a challenge as machine gun, shotgun, and Gauss rifle bullets began to rain down on it. Ranma and Ryoga, starting to see why Jim wanted them in his group, began to get pumped up and depressed, respectively, and fired off ki blasts at the monster.

The ultralisk looked around in confusion, then charged in the opposite direction, where the rubble led back to ground level. Ukyou and the five Zealots were dashing towards the building, but they weren't moving fast enough, and the ultralisk cleared the corner before they got there, vaulting itself easily over the heap of smashed concrete and glass and landing not ten feet from where Jim stood.

Akane and Mousse grimly turned their machine guns to the side and continued to shower the monstrosity with lead. Mojo pumped his shotgun and fired. His aim with the human weapon was remarkably poor, but even he could hardly miss at this range. Ranma and Ryoga, conscious of the fact that their ki blasts weren't really doing much damage, began to doggedly charge up for another attack.

Jim closed his eyes and fired, pushing a small switch in his armor that released a flood of mildly damaging hormones and enzymes into his bloodstream. _Stimpack. Dear God, how I hate the stimpack. _He'd only used it once before, in the chaotic battle on Mar Sara, and had had a bad enough experience with it that he'd hoped to never have to use it again. He grimaced as he felt his anger and strength build, and he began to run towards the ultralisk, moving at inhumanly fast speeds, dodging the beast's razor-sharp tusks effortlessly as he pelted it with bullets.

Ryoga, flinching as the sudden movement jarred his shoulder, fired another Shishi Houkoudan at the ultralisk, which paid it all the attention an angry bull pays to a fly. "Ranma!" he shouted. "This isn't working!"

Ranma nodded, watching his own ki blast collide harmlessly with the ultralisk's massive exoskeletal plating. Suddenly he grinned, his confidence returning to him. "Jump on him, Ryoga!"

Ryoga looked at him as if he'd gone insane. "What?"

Ranma began to run out in front of the ultralisk, waving his arms frantically. "DO IT, RYOGA!"

Ryoga watched him for a moment, then nodded. He grimaced, clutching his shoulder as he leapt onto the behemoth's shoulder, grabbing hold of its armor plates with his good arm and holding on for dear life. He tried punching the monster's back, but his fists were not even able to make a dent in its armor. "Now what, Ranma?" he demanded, delivering another harmless blow.

The blunt edge of one of the ultralisk's tusks crashed into Jim's chest, sending him soaring ten feet into the air. He landed with a metallic crunch on top of a pile of broken concrete just as the effects of the stimpack wore off, and slowly rose to his feet.

The ultralisk turned its attention to Ranma, who threw an exceptionally powerful Moko Takabisha at it, and danced out of the way of its tusks as it charged at him, swinging its massive tusks around brutally. It swung again and again as it ran at him, but it might have been trying to hack the wings off a fly for all the damage it was doing. Ranma began to run backwards in a spiral pattern. "RYOGA!" he screamed. "RYOGA! I...LOVE...AKANE!"

Ryoga watched him, shocked, through a haze of pain, as he tried desperately to hold on to the back of the rampaging ultralisk. What...why was he saying this? Why...why now?

"HEY, P-CHAN! ME AN' AKANE ARE GONNA GET MARRIED, SO YOU CAN GO TO HELL!"

Ryoga felt his grip slacken slightly, and he stared at the massive plating of the ultralisk despondently. He realized, as his world crashed down around him, that Ranma was absolutely, unwaveringly correct. He and Akane _did_ love each other. He had seen that once, a hundred times over, at the foot of Phoenix Mountain, and it hit him like a sledgehammer now.

They loved each other.

They were going to get married.

Man, that was one hell of a depressing thought.

He clenched his fists, letting the ultralisk drag him around as it pleased. Ranma was still desperately retreating, in a tighter and tigher spiral pattern...

He opened his eyes and screamed. "PERFECT...SHISHI...HOUKOUDAN!" Even the ultralisk seemed shocked at the giant pillar of light extending high above it, and peered upwards quizzically as the ki blast from hell slammed back down onto it with all the force of a tank shell. Ryoga lost his grip, the massive ki blast having drained his spirit completely, and he was thrown violently off the monster as it reared in pain.

Ranma stopped running, and thrust his fist straight up. "HIRYUU SHOUTEN HA!"

The ultralisk bellowed in agony as the tornado jerked it savagely towards the sky.

* * *

Jim watched in awe as the ultralisk was first consumed in a brilliant pillar of light, then sent soaring skyward when a magical tornado erupted from the ground.

Watched in awe, and continued blasting for all he was worth. The short-haired girl and long-haired boy, the former with an immensely shocked expression on her face, continued to train their machine guns on the monster as it fell out of the sky. Jim smiled with savage glee as the beast landed, and exploded in a huge mess of blood and bone.

"One down," he grunted, grinning at Mojo, who was staring intensely at the vanished gleam of Ryoga's ki blast.

Ukyou and the Zealots finally arrived, and Ukyou had a panicked look in her eyes.

"Er...what's the matter, Ucchan?" Ranma asked her, nervously.

Ukyou pointed behind him, and he turned around.

"Oh, shit," he breathed.

Ryoga lay where he had fallen, blood soaking through his shirt. He grimaced when he tried to rise, and saw.

The remaining ultralisk was standing about twenty feet from them, with the pack of twelve hydralisks arrayed behind in in firing formation.

For a moment, no one moved.

"Well, it's been nice knowin' y'all," Jim grunted, as he began to fire. The ultralisk howled and charged directly at him, and the hydralisks inched forward and began to fire their deadly needle spines...

Mojo was still staring at Ryoga's vanished Shishi Houkoudan, and then he suddenly snapped his giant fingers. "That's it!" he said, his eyes gleaming triumphantly.

Jim looked at him like he had grown a second head. "What's it, Mojo? Fire your damn shotgun!"

"That's it! I've figured it out!" Mojo crowed excitedly. He extended his arms in front of him, and suddenly, the other Zealots backed away from him respectfully. Psionic tendrils whispered around his thin arms like bright blue shards of fog. "PSI STORM!"

All of them watched in astonishment as the entire hydralisk line was consumed with beautiful, arcing streaks of brilliant silver-blue lightning. Almost as one, the hydralisks seemed to rupture and explode, spilling their blood and guts all over the wreckage of downtown Nerima.

Then the ultralisk reached them. Jim jumped backwards, firing the last of his Gauss rifle ammunition, and the five Zealots - and Ukyou - ripped into the monster with a ferocious scream of victory.

Within ten seconds, it was done.

Jim looked at his heads-up display. Three minutes and six seconds to Recall time.


	6. Everybody Loves Ranma

Part 6: Everybody Loves Ranma

Blink. "You...want to be a woman?"

Nervous: "Yes."

"How very strange. So...you're not a woman now?"

"No." Embarrassment.

Nod. "I...uh, I see. Well, ma'a...I mean, sir, we do still have some Spring of Drowned Girl water set aside, but..."

"How much, sir?"

Puzzled look. "Oh, we've never charged for the water. But look, I ought to tell you beforehand, there's no Spring of Drowned Man water left to cure you if you should decide later you don't like your curse. I should warn you, sir, I've never met anyone who says that they enjoy this curse..."

"I see."

"Well...I'll fetch you a cask of the water, sir. Sir, we do have several other waters you may be interested in, such as the Spring of Drowned Valley Girl and the Spring of Drowned Drunken Nun."

Baffled look. "Pardon me, but...what is a 'valley girl?'"

"Never mind, sir. It's one of those tragic stories that, upon closer inspection, is not quite so tragic after all."

"Uh...I see..."

"The Communist government wanted some of the personality-modification waters for scientific experiments, you see, sir. I have quite a number of different waters set aside. Spring of Drowned Fat Chick. Spring of Drowned Cosmetics Saleswoman. Drowned Obnoxious Three-Year-Old Girl. Drowned Depressed, Cynical Girl. Drowned Really, Really, Really, Ridiculously Good-Looking Blonde. I've never actually seen that last one in action, come to think of it. I wonder if it's different from the Valley Girl water."

"Huh?"

"Any particular one you want, sir?"

Hesitation. "I, uh...well, could you maybe just...give me samples of them all, and I could decide later?"

It never occurred to either of them that this might be a really bad idea.

* * *

Ryoga lay in the hospital bed and thought.

She was in girl form, as she had been for the entire week she'd spent in this place. It had begun to rain as they had taken her here, and it raised fewer questions if she simply remained female. The hospital beds were also quite small, and she gave a small bit of thanks for her significantly reduced bulk as a girl.

She looked down at her hands, flexed them. The pain had mostly left her wounded arm, and the gaping hole that the hydralisk's needle spine had left in her shoulder was entirely gone, leaving only a strangely shaped scar, like an inverted teardrop. The doctors told her that her left arm would always be a little stiff, but she knew better. They had told her it would take months for the wound itself to heal, and she had mended in little under a week. She flexed her hands, focused her ki, breathed. She would heal.

Her hands were large, and very muscular for a girl. She wondered about that. Ranma's girl form had been the picture of cute petiteness, but her own transformation was quite different. Ryoga was only a half-inch shorter as a girl, and, in place of Ranma's soft, slender body, hers was long, limber, wiry. She had looked at herself in the mirror many times since entering this place, and was mesmerized and puzzled by the girl she saw there. Though her hair stayed raven-black, she noticed that her eyes lightened considerably; they had become a rusty, golden brown, almost orange when the light glinted off them. She liked her eyes. She was not unattractive, she had decided, and her face was pretty enough, if a bit angular, but she was never going to be beautiful. She supposed that was probably for the best. She nearly gave herself a nosebleed looking at her own bust as it was; she shuddered to think what might happen if her body had been built like Ranma's.

Akari had not come.

Akane had been by once, with Ranma, two days after the battered troupe had dropped her off at this place. She had meant well, but Ryoga could not bring herself to do anything other than stare at the two of them, wondering about what Ranma had cried during the battle. He had just been trying to drag her down enough to pull off the perfect Shishi Houkoudan, she knew (and Ranma had somewhat tactlessly told her this over and over again in the aftermath of the battle, in Akane's full hearing range), but...she had stared, wondered. She saw it, in between the half-serious bickering that marked their strange relationship, just as she'd seen the day Ranma fought the Orochi, the day they had come back from Horaisan, the day that Ranma had wept over Akane's lifeless body in the shadow of Phoenix Mountain...

She wondered if Jim Raynor was alive. Ranma had told her that the man's strange scheme to leave the Earth had apparently succeeded, and he had returned to...wherever he had come from. He'd never really had any time to explain who he was, or what those demons, those 'Zerg,' that he fought were. But she had come to like him, in a strange way, and she hoped he was alive. After watching him fight, with his massive suit of armor and two four-foot-long guns blazing, she had a hard time thinking that something could've really killed him.

She wondered if Mojo was alive. There was something about the diminuitive Protoss that she had liked, as well. She really wished she had had the chance to ask him about the attack he had used against the Zerg. 'Psi storm.' She had never seen a single attack with that much raw power behind it.

Ukyou had come by once, as well. That had surprised her. In spite of her...coloration change, she was obviously still the same Ukyou, but there was something oddly distant about her. Ryoga had looked into her luminous silver-gold eyes, and had seen something not entirely human there. That scared her. And she remembered quite well watching Ukyou move during their fight with the Zerg...she had seen Ukyou fight before, and whatever had changed, whatever had taken her place was far different, and vastly more dangerous.

But she had been cheerful enough for all that, and had brought a hearty stack of okonomiyaki to lighten Ryoga's spirits. They had spoken briefly, of nothing in particular, and she had taken her leave, her strange, somehow almost metallic gray-green hair trailing behind her as she walked...

Even Cologne had been by, Shampoo in tow, later the same day that Ukyou visited. Evidently the main reason for her visit was to shower Ryoga with insults for leaving her behind on the mountain. Ryoga had endured it silently, and soon enough, the ancient Amazon was gone.

Ryoga frowned. Stupid old woman. She had lied to get her into this mess, and showed an annoying lack of gratitude. They _had _left her on the mountain, sure...but they had managed to stop Mousse, hadn't they?

But Akari had not come. She had asked Akane to send word to Akari that her sort-of boyfriend had finally come back - well, she had really asked Ranma, too, but she had put her faith in Akane - and she refused to believe that Akane had forgotten. But days passed, and Ryoga lay in bed, focusing her ki, and Akari had not come.

_Maybe she just wasn't home when Akane called,_ she reflected, for perhaps the thirtieth time that day. _Akane'll try again. She'll come. She'll be here..._

But the day wore on, and the sky grew dark, and Akari did not come.

The next morning, the stiffness in her shoulder had dwindled to a quiet ache, and she checked out of the hospital.

* * *

Pantyhose Tarou was livid when informed that neither the Springs of Drowned Asura nor Drowned Virtuous Man had been preserved.

"I'm very sorry, sir," the Guide said, in his perfunctory tone.

Tarou sneered. "Sure you are. I think you're just lying to me, you old..." He grasped about for an insult. He normally was pretty good at coming up with insults, but lately, after his latest failure to have a new name bestowed upon him, all of his insults somehow involved women's undergarments. "You old garter belt!"

Damn. That one wasn't so hot.

"Never mind that!" he continued, scowling. "Look, I want some water that will change a very evil old man into someone more...pliable. Surely you have _something_ here that can help me."

The Guide thought about that for a moment. He rummaged through a nearby cabinet. "Well, let me see here, I've got...Spring of Drowned Psychotic Maniac, Spring of...hmm, here's some Spring of Drowned Asshole water, I thought I was all out of that." He pulled out a small glass bottle and swirled its contents around curiously.

Tarou stared at the water, his mind churning. _Drowned...Asshole water? That would never work...would it? _He frowned. He remembered the last time he'd tried to force a new name out of the old wretch. The main reason he'd refused seemed to actually be that he considered 'Pantyhose Tarou' to be a wonderful name. _Maybe if I turned him into an asshole...he'd want to take away such a wonderful name?_

That was a thought.

"Let me see that water," he commanded. The Guide jumped to obey, tripped, and promptly shattered the glass bottle over Tarou's head as he tried to catch his balance.

"Aieee!" the Guide looked horrified. "I'm sorry, sir! Please don't-!"

"Hmm." Tarou looked down at himself. "I don't feel any different."

"R-really?" the Guide said, startled.

Tarou shrugged. "I guess that water's a dud, huh?"

The Guide was looking at him in fascination. "Sir, could it truly be...you're such an incredible asshole already, that the water has _no effect_?"

Tarou scowled. "Don't test me, you...lousy brassiere...shit." He coughed, then a look of sudden horror crossed his effeminate features. "NO!"

"Sir...?"

Tarou cast about frantically for a bucket of water. "Water...I need water!" he barked. "Cold water! Right now!"

The Guide handed him a flask of plain cold water, which he promptly upended on himself.

Tarou stared down at his soaked, very human body in utter horror.

"You ok, sir...?"

"I'm cured." Tarou looked stricken. "I'm CURED! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

His agonized scream reverberated throughout the valley.

* * *

Ranma, although vaguely pleased that he had managed to turn his horrid curse into a weapon of sorts, was still extremely unhappy about his current situation, and he dwelled on it extensively as he and Akane walked to school.

Akane, evidently, was having similar thoughts. "Ranma."

He sighed. "Akane?"

"I've decided. I'll go to Jusenkyo with you."

He grinned at her. "Good."

They both tried very hard not to think about what was _really _bothering them.

* * *

Ryoga initially had some vague intention of finding Akari's farm, but, as she passed the same block in Nerima for the fifth time, it was becoming clear that that wasn't going to happen. The massive amounts of destruction the Zerg had caused throughout the district, including the almost total annihilation of the downtown area, had ruined what little bearing she might have gotten from familiarity with the area.

The sixth time she passed in front of the Ucchan, the mouth-watering scent became unbearable, and she entered the restaurant, dreaming of more free food.

There were no customers inside, and the lights were the 'get-the-hell-out-already' harsh fluorescent of bars and restaurants after closing time. Ukyou stood, bathed in the white light, behind her grill, cleaning it mechanically.

Ryoga heard soft footsteps behind her, and turned. "Lady Ukyou...?" a soft, effeminate voice said. The speaker was a strikingly pretty girl dressed in ninja's garb. She was wearing an exceptionally large camping backpack.

Ukyou looked up at them both, her eerie silver-gold eyes shining brighter than the harsh white light surrounding her. "Ryoga. Konatsu." She greeted them flatly, then resumed her cleaning. "How was China?"

Ryoga looked confused. "China...?"

Konatsu smiled slightly. "It was good, Lady Ukyou."

Ukyou spoke without inflection, without looking up from her work. "You three should have come to see me before you set off for China, Ryoga. Konatsu would have wanted to join you."

"Huh?" Ryoga said brightly. She looked at Konatsu again, suddenly remembering who this ninja was. During their journey through China, Ranma _had_ mentioned something about Ukyou having a crossdressing assistant... Wait. Ryoga looked closely at the ninja. _Clearly female. Of course...I thought Ukyou was clearly male when I first met her, so who knows?_

Konatsu was still smiling. Ryoga noticed, with some amount of discomfort, that she - or he, or whatever - had a very pretty smile. "It's fine, Lady Ukyou. I made it there myself."

Ryoga watched the ninja girl/guy, puzzled. "Where?"

Konatsu unslung the giant camping pack. "To Jusenkyo, ma'am," he/she replied politely, unzipping the large compartment of the pack and removing a small cask.

Ryoga read the characters on the side of the cask, astonished. "Nyan...nii...chuan..." she said slowly, in halting Chinese. She stared at the pretty ninja, wide-eyed. "This is water from the Spring of Drowned Girl!"

"Konatsu's a man," Ukyou informed her dryly, "but not very happy with that fact. So he took some time off from work to fly to Jusenkyo." She looked over Konatsu, something like amusement on her face. "So, how do you like being a girl? Everything you hoped it would be?"

Konatsu looked embarrassed, and stared at the floor. "I...uh...I haven't actually decided whether or not to use it yet, Lady Ukyou. That's why I brought this back with me. I...I hoped you might...help me decide."

Ukyou laughed. Ryoga watched her strangely; her laugh sounded very much like it had in her cursed form, when she had laughed at the foot of the mountain. "Konatsu, I have to say, I'm probably the absolute _last_ person you ought to ask for advice about this." Her eyes glittered as they raked over Ryoga. "I wouldn't ask this 'girl,' either, if I was you."

Ryoga frowned. "Hey..." She paused, sized up the pretty ninja carefully. "Wait...so that means that you're a _guy_, right now?"

Konatsu nodded.

Ryoga crumpled to the ground. "MY EYES!" she wailed, clutching at her face frantically.

Ukyou walked calmly over to her and _whanged _her solidly over the head with a not-quite-so-big-ass spatula. "Grow up, Ryoga," she grumbled.

"Did I mention that I just got out of the hospital this morning?" Ryoga muttered, enjoying her stay on the floor.

"Konatsu," Ukyou was saying, ignoring the battered Lost Girl completely, "keep in mind that if you use this stuff, there's no way to get rid of the curse, since the Spring of Drowned Man is gone."

Konatsu nodded. "Yes...I know, Lady Ukyou." He watched her, his eyes wide and innocent. "Lady Ukyou...you've been both a man and a woman. Kind of. I was wondering...how do you...I mean..." he trailed off, uncertain.

Ukyou laughed again. "Do I like being a man or a woman better? Konatsu, I was never actually a man, just...well." She hauled Ryoga to her feet, smiling sweetly at her. "Maybe you _should _ask the lost girl here."

"Why, Lady Ukyou?" Konatsu asked, confused.

"I'm a guy," Ryoga offered, grinning.

"You hide it well, sir," Konatsu offered politely, in a tone of professional respect.

Ryoga stopped grinning at that, and pointed to the cask of water. "No...I mean, I'm a _guy_..."

Konatsu started. "Oh!" He hesitated, then began, "So...I mean...do you..." He swallowed. "Do you like being a girl?"

She grinned again. "Honestly, I used to be cursed to turn into...well, something much worse. So, this doesn't really bother me that much." She frowned. "But I'd rather be a guy all the time, if that's what you mean."

The girly ninja sighed. "I see."

"Say, Ukyou," Ryoga said, looking around at the deserted restaurant, "how come there's no one here? It can't be later than one o'clock..."

"The Ucchan is not open for business today," Ukyou replied curtly, placing her giant spatula on a table. It clanked. "Didn't you notice the 'closed' sign on the door? I've got...something else to attend to." She removed a small envelope from her pocket and stared at it, her eyes blazing. Psi energy began to coalesce around her rigid hands.

Ryoga watched her, slightly concerned. "Um...Ukyou? You okay?"

Ukyou glared at her. "What, Ryoga? You didn't get one of these? _Another_ one of these?"

"Uh...no," she said, wilting a bit under the naked hostility of her not-quite-human stare. "But I've been in the hospital..."

Ukyou threw the envelope to her. She caught it, opened it...

INVITATION TO THE WEDDING OF AKANE TENDO AND RANMA SAOTOME.

Ryoga stared, and the words tumbled out of her mouth before she could choke them back: "I can't believe they'd invite you again...you helped wreck the last one!"

Ukyou snorted back a laugh. "I thought Ranma was being dragged into it against his will. And when I got there..." She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Ryoga, I heard what he said when you guys were fighting the ultralisk."

Ryoga watched her apprehensively. _Ranma, _she thought, _Ranma, not Ran-chan, she never calls him Ranma..._ She didn't like where this was going one bit. There was a gleam in Ukyou's eyes that looked strangely familiar...

Konatsu took a short step towards her, concern written plainly on his slender, innocent face. "Lady Ukyou..."

"HE LOVES HER!" Ukyou roared, her eyes like pools of fire.

Ryoga sighed. "Ukyou...look, I-"

"HE LOVES HER!"

She didn't really have anything to say to that, so she just stood there, staring dumbly.

Psi blades descended from her forearms with a soft hum. Ryoga looked at them, oddly detached. They were different from the psi blades she'd had in her cursed form; less focused, somehow. It was more like a little glowing silver-blue cloud around her fist than a blade, really...

"You've ruined my life for a second time, Ranma Saotome," she growled, the clouds around her fists growing brighter and more focused. "Now, it's time for my _revenge_!"

"You know," Ryoga remarked dryly, "you remind me of...me."

Ukyou turned her burning eyes toward her, and smiled. "How about it, sugar? What do you say we go and crush Ranma? It'll be a fun afternoon out, I promise."

Ryoga just stared, silent.

She grinned unpleasantly. "No? Well, come along later, if you like, I promise I'll save a little bit for you." She winked, hoisted her battle spatula, and disappeared through the front door, slamming it shut loudly behind her.

When Ryoga turned to look, Konatsu was gone, too.

* * *

"So, Ranma, word has it that you and Akane're tying the knot!"

Ranma strode disspiritedly down the walkway leading up to Furinkan High, and looked over at his friend Hiroshi, his face burning. "Um...well, our parents are tryin' to push us into another stupid weddin'...guess they must not've picked up on what a disaster the last one was..."

Daisuke grinned at him. "You sayin' you don't want to marry her, Ranma?"

Hiroshi pinched his left cheek, laughing. "Then why you so red, Ranma? You embarrassed or something?"

Akane, who was well within earshot, glared at him. "Who would want to marry you anyway, you jerk?"

Ranma jumped away from them, irritated. "Hey, it ain't like tha-"

Twinge.

He sensed it above him before it hit, and twisted out of the way of a barrage of small throwing spatulas. They thudded dully into the ground beside him, and he looked up. Ukyou was standing about ten feet from him, her arms crossed in front of her.

"Hey, Ucchan..." he greeted her, happy at first, then uncertain as he met her intense stare. "Uh...how's it goin'?"

Ukyou smiled at him. Her eyes gleamed. "Heard you're getting married, Ranma."

Ranma hesitated, then glared at Akane, who glared right back. "Look, that's just-"

"Let me recap here," Ukyou said calmly, cutting him off. She began to walk toward him, ticking off things on her fingers. "You and your father broke your promise to take me with you, stealing my inheritance and my father's livelihood. This basically ruins my life. I finally find you again, and to avoid taking your punishment, you start playing with my heart...again." Her face was dead calm, but her eyes were burning like miniature suns. "And then, after twisting my whole life around to make myself the perfect fiance for you...you love _her_." She stopped walking. "You're marrying _her_."

"Ukyou," Akane broke in, "this whole marriage plan is our fath-"

"Shut up," Ukyou told her curtly, removing her battle spatula from her bandolier...and dropping it harmlessly to the ground beside her. She cracked her knuckles, smiling. "So, what do you say..._Ran-chan_? Ready to take your punishment like a man?"

Ranma watched her, uncertain. "Look, Ucchan...I, uh...I'm sorry that..."

Ukyou covered the space between them almost faster than the eye could move, and slammed her glowing fist solidly into Ranma's unprotected abdomen. His eyes widened in surprise as found himself staggering backwards, and fell to one knee to steady himself.

"You know what, Ranma?" Ukyou said conversationally, walking towards him slowly as he pulled himself easily to his feet. She popped her knuckles again, and her eyes were scorching hot. "I think you're lying. I think you're not sorry." She smiled. "But I think you _will_ be."

Ranma somehow saw the next punch coming, and slid into a defensive stance, knocking the punch just far enough off course that it brushed harmlessly off his forearm. He shook his head. "Ucchan, look, I don't fight girls-"

He was cut off as the next punch came in, even harder and faster than the first two, and landed a off-target, but still quite painful, blow to his left temple. He slid back further, scowling. "Don't make me hurt you, Ucchan."

Ukyou laughed. "What's this? Went from 'I don't fight girls' to 'don't make me hurt you' so quickly?" She sunk into a deep forward stance and clenched her fists. Psionic tendrils coalesced around them until they glowed nearly as bright as her eyes. "Sounds like another lie to me, _Ran-chan_. But what's a little more shit in the bucket for Ranma Saotome, right?"

Ranma watched her uneasily. "Ucchan..."

"FIGHT ME!" she roared, lashing out with a vicious series of punches. He spun and dodged, blocking and meeting her punches with his own fists for a moment, then her inhuman speed began to tell, and he was taking a solid hit for every two he blocked or dodged. _This isn't working,_ he realized, leaping high into the air, flipping, and landing a good fifteen feet away from her.

"Lady Ukyou!"

"Ukyou!"

Ukyou turned, annoyed. "Who-?" She sighed. "Konatsu, this is none of your business. And that goes double for you, Ryoga."

Ranma slowly eased out of his fighting stance. "What're you guys doin' here?"

"I am here to defend Lady Ukyou," Konatsu announced solemnly, setting his giant backpack down and holding his sword before him.

Ranma smirked. "Defend? I don't think she needs your help, there, buddy. And what about you, Lost Girl? Come to help Ucchan pound on me?"

Ryoga ignored him and rummaged hurriedly through Konatsu's pack, pulling out a small cask of water. "Akane! This water can-"

Konatsu turned and slashed at her with his sword. Ryoga rolled backwards, her prize in her hands. She grinned at him. "Sorry, but this water has more important uses now!"

Konatsu charged at her, face blazing with righteous fury. Ryoga spun to the side, avoiding his first swipe, then jumped backwards, barely dodging the second. She hurled the cask of water to Akane, who snagged it easily out of the air.

She looked at it curiously, unable to read the Chinese characters painted on its side. "Ryoga...? What's this?"

Ryoga took a glancing blow from Konatsu's sword, and landed a light hit to his temple. He staggered back, then looked at Akane, then Ryoga, then Akane again. "Give that back," he grated, a plaintive note in his feminine voice.

"Use it, Akane!" Ryoga shouted, feeling the soak into her shirt from the shallow cut across her chest. "It's Spring of Drowned Girl water!"

"Why do you-"

Konatsu made a frantic grab for the cask, and Akane jerked back reflexively, so his outstretched hands just tipped the cask hard enough to knock it from her hands.

"NO!" Konatsu cried, lunging for the cask, tangling himself in Akane's flailing body, almost catching it,

bobbling it, then altering its trajectory just enough so that its lid popped off and the opened cask sloshed its

contents all over Ranma. It landed neatly on his head.

Such is life, if you're Ranma Saotome.

Ranma coughed and removed the barrel from her head, a look of pure jubilance in her eyes. "I...I'm cured!" she shouted, bursting with happiness. "I'm not a valley girl any more! I...I...what are you all staring at?"

Ryoga, Ukyou, Akane, Konatsu, and about fifteen assorted Furinkan students (all male, naturally...who else stops to watch a brawl?) had turned to stare at Ranma's head in shock.

A lock of her hair fell down over her eyes, and she reached up to brush it away, and noticed, with a start, that it was a very light golden color.

"Ranma..." Akane said, shocked. "You're..."

"...blonde," Ukyou finished, a very strange look in her eyes.

"Oh my God," Konatsu said, his eyes wide. A small trickle of drool escaped his mouth. "Ranma, you're...you're..."

Ryoga had a stupid smile on her face. "The absolute most beautiful thing I've ever seen!" She and Konatsu made simultaneous lunges for the absurdly hot blonde standing before them, and Ranma jumped back nervously, sending Konatsu sprawling with a kick.

"Hey...HEY!" she shouted. "Ryoga! Snap out of it! HEY!"

Ryoga shook her head suddenly, shocked. She looked around, and noticed that even Akane and Ukyou, who were straight as far as she knew, were staring at Ranma's new body appreciatively. The other students around them had a rapturous glaze over their eyes as they stumbled, zombie-like, towards Ranma. "Wow...that was...some kind of magic or something..."

Ranma screamed and ran towards the school, picking up an ever-larger mob of lust-addled students as she fled.

"Ranma! Ranma!" Akane called after her, then realized she wasn't going to come back. She turned to Ryoga, an annoyed look on her face. "What _was_ that?" she demanded.

Ryoga was still trying to snap herself out of it. "I...uh, I...I have no idea, Akane," she mumbled vaguely.

"Spring of Drowned Really, Really, Really, Ridiculously Good-Looking Blonde," Konatsu informed them, sighing. "I would have told you if you hadn't been in such a hurry to steal it."

* * *

Ryu Kumon was not a man who believed in love at first sight. He was a bitter, cynical, angry man who had been trampled down by the ill fortunes that life had dealt him from the very beginning, and would have sneered derisively at anyone who told him that they had known their true love immediately upon seeing them for the first time.

So it was with some shock that Ryu saw, upon entering the schoolyard to once again challenge the man who had ruined his life to a fight to the finish, Ranma Saotome get smacked in the head by a cask of water, then slowly remove it from his head. He watched the cask come off slowly, as if in a dream, and his mouth fell open at the vision of pure loveliness that emerged from the cask. His heart was in his throat and his eyes sparkled as he gaped, disbelieving.

"Ranma Saotome..." he whispered, staring. He clasped his hands before him. "Never before have I felt such...such..." He wiped a tear of pure happiness away. "Sure pure _joy_!" He began to charge towards Ranma, his arms outspread. "RANMA SAOTOME, I LOVE YOU!"


	7. Curses, Kisses, and Sweet, Sweet Revenge

Part 7: Curses, Kisses, and Sweet, Sweet Revenge

Ryu sat by himself in the Nerima McDonald's, in a state of pure and utter self-loathing.

He had told Ranma that he _loved_ him. It was not merely that he had, in a moment of weakness, called off his grudge against him, or renounced his hate for him - no, he had stood there, gaping like a fool as Ranma received some new curse that changed him into a bizarrely attractive woman, and then he had honestly, truly believed, with all his heart, that he had found love at first sight. His desperate longing when he followed the horde of students into the school and found that Ranma had (of course) eluded them had very quickly faded into disappointment, then into a healthy state of denial, and then, as he reflected on just who Ranma was, into his current self-hatred.

Ranma Saotome.

First off, he was a man. Ryu knew he was not exactly a ladies' man, but he was one-hundred percent straight. He had never, in his whole life, had thoughts that way about another man, and he actually had (along with most of the martial artist population of Nerima) a somewhat severe case of homophobia.

Second off, he had ruined Ryu's life.

Third, he was one of the most obnoxious, inconsiderate people he had ever had the displeasure of knowing. Fourth, he was...he was...

Ryu stopped and thought about that last one, staring at his cheeseburger and fries with a rising fury.

Obnoxious. Inconsiderate. Yes, Ranma certainly was those things, but what difference did that make? He fumed, crushing an unlucky fry in his fist. Ranma was a _man_. If Ranma had been a kind and considerate man, would that...

He cut off that thought hastily, tossed the remainder of his meal into the trash, and stalked out of the McDonald's.

* * *

Ranma, male again, sat on the roof of the high school, shivering.

Jerks.

Absolute, inconsiderate, insufferable jerks.

Turning in a girl was bad enough. Turning into a girl was even worse when the entire school knew about it, and turned his condition into a punch-line. (Three or four local comedians had, in fact, been known to incorporate 'Jusenkyokes' into their routines, giving Ranma a whole lot of completely unwanted, and, to his mind, completely unfunny, publicity.) Turning into a girl was absolutely intolerable when the entire school knew about it, and _tried to hit on him anyway_.

He fumed, his hand resting reassuringly on the kettle beside him. What the hell kind of water had Konatsu been walking around with, anyway? Spring of Drowned Western Girl? Why would blond hair provoke such an insane reaction? It had to be something else.

He thought, tapping his fingers against the railing.

"Okay," he muttered, hefting the bucket of cold water beside him. He turned around and looked at himself in the reflective surface of one of the windows looking out onto the roof. "Guess I'm gonna hafta see for myself..."

Splash.

She stared at herself. "Holy shit," she breathed, a small bit of drool escaping from her perfectly formed lips.

She had turned into the most insanely, ridiculously, absurdly beautiful girl that she had ever seen. Words are completely inadequate to describe the level of hotness she observed in the reflection. The hottest supermodels in the world were less than nothing compared to her. She was to a normal hot girl as a supernova is to a candle. A really, really _big_ supernova.

She emptied the remains of the kettle on her head with a half-horrified, half-lust-filled shudder.

_Okay,_ he reflected, _so maybe I can't really hold their reactions against them. And I guess it _is _better than the valley girl curse...but still._

He started tapping his fingers again. What to do...

After a moment's thought, he realized what he really needed to do was somehow get a hold of Konatsu when he was separated from Ukyou - which was pretty much never - and get a look at what other Jusenkyo waters he had in his pack.

Relieved to have a plan at last, he darted off down the stairs.

* * *

Ryoga, male again after a quick trip to the hot water spigot in the first floor boys' room, nodded. "I heard him say it!"

"So..." Akane drew it out, her hand on the canal fence as the two of them walked back to the Tendo home. "What happened to Ranma?"

He scowled. "I guess it's just what Konatsu said. I mean, I guess he brought back a bunch of different kinds of Jusenkyo water."

"Why would he do that?"

"Well...he wants to be a girl, apparently, so why settle for just being a girl when you can be a really, really, really, ridiculously good looking blond girl?"

Akane shook her head. "Ridiculous." Her eyes had an intense look as she stared out over the canal. "Although I have to say...it would be better than...my current curse."

"Yes," Ryoga agreed, "I think anything would be." _Well,_ he amended silently, _not _anything

He looked over at her furtively as they walked, and was surprised to find that he was not as embarrassed as he expected himself to be. Sure, his stomach turned to mush and his knees to jelly whenever she looked at him, but that was pretty much par for the course for a typical Ryoga Hibiki-interacts-with-a-girl situation. He found it very encouraging the additional Akane-only symptoms (such as banging his head repeatedly into telephone posts) seemed to be dying down somewhat. He wondered if that was due to his curse change (a burst of confidence because he was a pig no more? a loss of nervousness around girls because he was getting pretty familiar with his own cursed body?), or his kind-of-sort-of relationship with Akari, the fact that he'd been forced to actually interact with two other people for eight whole months, or...

"Anyway, Ryoga," she said, smiling at him (he felt his heart plop into his stomach), "I think I'm going to try to get some of that water from Konatsu."

He swallowed, trying to keep his head on straight. "I...uh...that's a...good idea..."

"I think so too," she agreed, oblivious to his discomfort. She cracked her knuckles. "And that Ukyou better not try to stop me, either. I can't believe she's flipped back into Ranma-I-will-have-my-revenge mode, after all this time!"

Ryoga looked uncomfortable, and, having spent a sizable chunk of his own life trying to exact revenge upon Ranma, didn't really know what to say to that. Akane turned down the street towards Ucchan's, and he followed in silence.

* * *

Ukyou and Konatsu looked at each other, then at the row of plastic bottles and small wooden casks filled with cursed water.

She tapped her finger against the fine wood grain of the table, and stared. Tap-tap-tap. The restaurant was still closed, it being too early for the dinner rush, but she had turned off the get-the-hell-out-already lights and the grill was already warming up. It felt like a restaurant again.

"So," Ukyou said, at length, breaking the awkward silence.

"Lady Ukyou," Konatsu mumbled, embarrassed, in that completely deferential voice he always used towards her. She despised that voice. In many ways, she liked Konatsu, and thought of him as a friend, but whenever she paused to think about that servile, completely effeminate voice, and realized it was coming from a _man_, it made her want to throw up. She was aware that she had somewhat old-fashioned views of how men ought to behave, and also aware that her position was somewhat absurd, given her habit of routinely crossdressing her way around school, but, in her defense, when she was dressed like a boy, she did her damnedest to act like she thought a boy should act, and had even, on occasion, been known to be appropriately feminine when she was dressed as a girl. Such a thin, pretty-faced, graceful boy as Ukyou-in-drag really did, after all, have to make up in behavior what 'he' lacked in appearance.

She did consider that if Konatsu actually become a girl, his deferential behavior probably wouldn't get on her nerves so much.

"So, Konatsu," she tried again, prodding him. "Are you going to do it, or not?"

He stared at the collection of waters before him, then suddenly gave a sharp nod. "Yes, Lady Ukyou. I am."

She grinned at him. "Don't regret it."

He gave her a hopeless look. "But I don't know which one to use!"

Puzzlement. "What do you mean? What _are_ all these different waters, anyway?" Her grin took on a sardonic edge. "Don't tell me you're thinking about using the Spring of Super-Ultra-Ridiculously Hot Blond Girl, or whatever you called it?"

He flushed a delicate shade of pink. "Um...yes, I was thinking about it..." He poked at a small vial of water nervously. "I actually brought two samples of that water back..."

Ukyou couldn't stop a little laugh at that. "Just in case you lost one while trying to interfere in a duel?"

He didn't respond, and continued to stare moodily at the water.

"How much of the regular Spring of Drowned Girl water do you have, anyway, Konatsu?" she asked, suddenly struck by a thought.

He looked at her, puzzled, and pointed to one small cask, about the size of both her fists stacked on top of each other. _That's probably not enough for two people,_ she reflected, estimating its volume.

"Why do you ask, Lady Ukyou?"

Ukyou gave him a pained look. "Konatsu? Just Ukyou. Please? Pretty please with sugar on top? Just Ukyou. None of this 'Lady' business. I've asked you a hundred times, but please just listen to me this time. Consider it your way of thanking me for giving you enough time off to go to Jusenkyo, okay? Okay?"

He nodded nervously.

"Right," she grumbled, sitting back. "So, yeah, I ask, well, partially for myself, but..." She trailed off, thinking. For herself? No... She looked down at her hands, still almost invisibly pulsing with psi energy. _I like...whatever's happened to me,_ she realized, with something of a shock. _I haven't even tried to change myself back yet._ She knew it was affecting her mind somehow, but for some reason, it didn't bother her. And she _really _liked her newfound power.

Konatsu was looking at her, baffled. "For yourself, Lad...er, Ukyou? I don't think that this water will cure a bad dye-job, I'm sorry to say..."

She looked at him for a long moment, then began to laugh. Seeing his confusion increase, she choked down her laughter and just said, "Konatsu...it's a long story."

He didn't respond, so she stood up suddenly, and walked to the kitchen sink. _Why haven't I changed back yet?_ she asked herself, wondering about this new curse that strange Protoss had given her. She waited for the water to become hot, and filled up a glass, then dumped it on herself.

She looked down at her hands, puzzled. Still kind of a gold color. Definitely still psi energy there. A strand of hair drooped down over her face, and she stared at it. Gray-green. Still.

She stepped back from the sink, trying to process this new development.

"L...Ukyou?" he ventured, watching her with mounting worry. "You're haven't been cursed, have you?"

She ignored him, staring at her dripping hands, shocked. "Maybe...maybe the water's just not...hot enough?" she mumbled to herself, disbelieving. She let the water run for a good thirty seconds this time, until it was scalding hot, then filled up a large pot with the steaming liquid and poured it on herself.

She looked down at her slightly scalded, but still golden-colored, hands.

"I don't change back with hot water," she breathed, suddenly realizing exactly what Zeratul had done to her. _He must have combined my cursed body with my normal body. That's what all that crap about not being a true Protoss was about..._

There was a knock at the door, and Konatsu leapt to answer it.

Akane and Ryoga stood there. She's slightly angry, if Ukyou was any judge, and he's embarrassed. _But I guess that's no surprise, in either case._

"I want the cure," Akane announced abruptly, marching to the center of the room and favoring Ukyou with a challenging stare.

Ukyou shrugged, and gestured to Konatsu. "That's his call, sugar. You might try being a little more polite..."

Konatsu looked almost as embarrassed as Ryoga as he met Akane's infuriated, and just slightly desperate, eyes. "This is my water," he said, softly.

"Look, Konatsu," she said, a pleading edge breaking through her angry facade, "I know...I know you want that water so you can become a girl, and I guess that's important to you, but..." She shuddered. "Konatsu, I have a curse that warps my _mind_. Do you know how awful that is for me?" She watched him, studied him. "I...just want...to be cured."

Konatsu looked uncertain, so Ukyou added dryly, "You know, you might as well give her the girl water, Konatsu, it's not like you have a shortage of 'specialty' girl waters here to use on yourself if you decide to."

"I..." Konatsu gazed helplessly through his collection of Jusenkyo waters, but Ukyou's voice seemed to steel him. "Very well. Akane, you may have the water from the..."

He trailed off as he noticed one of the casks - not the Spring of Drowned Girl cask - had disappeared into thin air. As fate would have it, at the exact same time, a loud, somewhat rude knock sounded on the door, and Ryoga, seeing that everyone else was preoccupied, pulled the door open and stepped aside unobtrusively.

"You open?" the young man standing outside asked, leaning inside slightly.

Ukyou looked at him, then at the alarmed-looking Konatsu, then at the obvious hole in Konatsu's neat row of bottles. "Um...no, not yet..."

Ryoga was favoring the new visitor with an irritated stare. "Pantyhose Tarou," he greeted him, flatly.

Tarou stepped into the restaurant and smiled unpleasantly at Ryoga. "Hello there, pork chop, been a while. Miss me?"

"No."

Tarou grinned. "Didn't think so. So, think you could scare me up a bacon okonomiyaki there, pig boy...?"

Ryoga glowered at him. "Why are you here?" he demanded, clenching his fists.

"I like okonomiyaki," Tarou said, shrugging. "Why are _you_ here?" he repeated, amused. "This the new hangout for Jusenkyo-cursed weirdos or something?"

"Look," Ukyou interrupted, "we're not open until 4:30, so, Pantyhose Tarou, if you-"

"DON'T CALL ME BY THAT NAME!" he roared, clutching his head in agony.

Ukyou stared at him. "Uh...what?"

Tarou stuck his fist out to punch her wall in frustration, but instead connected with...a shoulder. He looked suspiciously at the (apparently) empty space in front of him, then leveled a few more punches at it. A suddenly visible Ranma Saotome staggered back, a small cask of stolen water in his hand.

"Eheh..." he said, his hand behind his head nervously. "Hey there, guys..."

"My water!" Konatsu said, shocked.

"So, stooping to new lows, eh, fem-boy?" Tarou sneered, grinning nastily. "Robbing restaurants in broad daylight? Guess I shouldn't be too surprised, given that it's you..."

"Shut up, _Pantyhose_," Ranma growled, staring at him threateningly. "Come here to try and con a new name for yourself again? What, your plan to take over the world with magnetic back plasters didn't work out?"

Ukyou watched them with growing unease. She vaguely remembered Ranma talking about Pantyhose Tarou, something about him kidnapping Akane and trying to beat everybody up. She had the distinct feeling this could turn into a bloodbath at any moment.

Akane, evidently deciding the same thing, hurriedly ran over to Konatsu's table, retrieved the Spring of Drowned Girl cask, and emptied its contents on herself. She smiled with blessed relief as she felt the cold water hit her, and her brain was not suddenly consumed by a desire to go shopping.

Tarou chuckled. "This time, I won't fail." He removed a bottle of water from his pack. "Take a look at this, crossdresser! This is water from the Spring of Drowned Asshole." He was puzzled at the strange look that entered Ranma's eyes when he stared at the bottle. "Once I use this on the old man, my new name is all but assured!"

Ranma snorted back laughter. "I'm startin' to think the back plaster plan was one of your _good_ ideas."

"How is turning Happosai into an even bigger asshole than he already is going to help you get a new name?" Ryoga demanded, his stance towards Tarou just as hostile as Ranma's.

Akane nodded, still smiling beatifically. "Yeah," she agreed, "that does sound like a pretty sad plan, Tarou..."

"Well, it's going to-" Tarou broke off, snorting. "Forget it, your feeble minds couldn't possibly comprehend my brilliant plan."

Akane scowled. "Now look here..."

Ryoga lifted Tarou up by his collar, growling. "How dare you talk to Akane that way?"

"No!" Ukyou shouted, jumping over the counter. "You idiots are not going to wreck my restaurant again!"

Too late.

Tarou twisted and kicked Ryoga in the face. Ryoga shrugged it off, grabbed his outstretched leg, and swung him bodily into the hard wood of a nearby booth. It shattered under the immense force of the impact.

Konatsu, sensing his chance, darted in and snatched his water back from Ranma's grasping fingers. Noticing that no one was paying any attention to him, and also that the room was in all likelihood about to erupt in a massive brawl, he made a sudden decision, and poured one of the bottles of water on himself.

"So, you're pretty strong," Tarou grated, jerking his leg out of Ryoga's iron grip and popping his knuckles. "For a pig."

Ranma moved to kick Tarou from behind, but he sensed it before he hit, spun, and let Ranma stumbled forward, off-balance. He smiled and thrust-kicked Ranma into another booth. It also shattered.

"God dammit!" Ukyou growled, her eyes and fists burning with psi energy. "YOU'RE DOING IT AGAIN!"

Tarou, now sensing something really powerful behind him, turned around apprehensively at the green-haired, gold-skinned girl with the glowing hands and eyes. "Maybe we should take this outside," he suggested lightly, before receiving a hard hit in the face from Ranma. He flipped backwards, losing his grip on the bottle of Spring of Drowned Asshole water in his hand. It flew up into the air, and somehow the momentum shifting associated with the sudden movement caused the top to pop open.

It landed on Akane's head.

They all stared, horrified.

"Fucking shit," the now male Akane rumbled, flexing his massive arms angrily. He was a good foot-and-a-half taller than any of them, looked like he weighed about three times as much, had arms and legs like tree trunks, and looked really, really silly dressed in a tiny school girl's uniform, with his hair cut in a girly bob. He popped his enormous neck, grinning. His teeth were very large. "You pieces of dog shit just got me all fucking wet, and I'm gonna take it out of your hides."

The destruction of Ucchan's commenced, with much shouting, cursing, and breaking of inanimate objects over people's heads. Although everyone was really too preoccupied to care, a heart-shatteringly pretty blond girl dressed like a ninja jumped into the fray after a moment and started to break heads with the best of them.

* * *

About twenty minutes later, the six of them were strewn about the ruins of Ucchan's. Ryoga and Akane, both female again, were completely unconscious underneath a small heap of rubble that had resulted from the destruction of part of the wall. Ranma, soaking wet from multiple encounters with the ruptured kitchen sink as well as Konatsu's Jusenkyo water collection, was trying without much success to pull herself to her feet, wondering fatalistically what sort of weird girl she had turned into this time. Ukyou was sprawled out over the counter in an unnatural position, trying to claw her way towards Ranma, muttering something about sweet revenge. Tarou and Konatsu had collapsed together in the broken pieces of one of the booths.

"Say...Ucchan..." Ranma grunted, panting. "Do I...huff...look any different to you?"

Ukyou growled and kept inching her way towards him. She had a lump on her forehead the size of an apple. "Shut up...and take your punishment...like a man...Ranma..."

Ranma ventured a look up at her hair, and noticed, with a sigh, that it still looked blonde. It was hard to tell, though, because it was soaking wet...

Tarou coughed. His lungs felt like they were composed entirely of wood chips and concrete dust. "Get...off...me..." he snarled, half-heartedly, giving the masked figure sprawled out on top of him a light shove.

Konatsu, half-unconscious, tore off her mask and joined in the coughing, reflexively punching Tarou in the face.

Tarou stared.

Konatsu stared back, dizzy.

Tarou kept staring.

Konatsu's eyes narrowed. "What?" she growled, reaching for her sword, which she belatedly realized was buried up to its hilt in the side wall of the wrecked restaurant.

Tarou drooled a little bit and glomped her.

"EEEEEK!" she wailed, prying him off and beating him to a pulp with a large mallet.

Ukyou continued to crawl towards Ranma relentlessly until she finally came within grappling distance. She grabbed hold of Ranma's shoulders, pulling herself grimly to her knees.

"Ucchan," Ranma wheezed, "couldn't this...huff...maybe wait a bit...huff huff...?"

Ukyou locked her hands behind Ranma's head and started trying to wrestle her way to a better grappling position. "Huff...huff...die...Saotome..." Ranma squirmed fruitlessly, lacking the energy to either wrestle or escape.

Ryoga slowly came to and began to extract herself and Akane from the rubble. "Akane," she mumbled, scrambling and confused. "Akane, are you okay? Akane..."

Ukyou twisted and rolled Ranma over onto her back, pinning the other girl's arms to the ground with her hands. Ranma jerked her waist up, then shot her body quickly to the side, putting Ukyou off balance, then tumbled them both to the side, so that they were grappling on more-or-less even ground.

"You...ruined...my...life..." Ukyou was ranting, twisting around unsuccessfully, trying to gain position.

"Shaddap...Ucchan..." Ranma huffed, having equally little luck.

Ukyou suddenly gained a little leverage, and used it to elbow the other girl in the face. "Take that!" she snarled, leaning forward to do it again. Ranma used her momentum against her, wrapping her arm around Ukyou's other side and flipping her neatly over onto her back. Ukyou rolled with the maneuver, and the two scrambled for position. Suddenly, Ranma was on top, her legs locked around Ukyou, and she wrapped one of her arms around Ukyou's head and started to apply a submission hold. Ukyou gasped for air and twisted violently to one side, and somehow, Ranma lost her balance, and the two did a complete barrel roll in midair, slamming noisily into the ruins of the sink, bathing them both in a shower of steaming hot water, a tangled mess of bruised limbs with their faces mashed together.

And then, quite unintentionally, they were kissing.

Ryoga stumbled out of the rubble, the still-unconscious Akane hoisted unceremoniously over her shoulder, and stared.

"Um...hey..." she ventured, watching them with disbelief.

They completely ignored her, rolling around on the kitchen floor, kissing each other frantically as they tore each other's clothes off.

"Is this happening?" she muttered, rubbing her eyes. "Maybe I'm dreaming... HEY!" she shouted. "AKANE'S HURT, I'M TAKING HER TO THE CLINIC, MAYBE YOU JERKS MIGHT CARE."

Ranma and Ukyou looked up, suddenly seemed to come to their senses, and exchanged horrified glances with each other, then Ryoga, then the still-thankfully-unconscious Akane.

"Oh shit! Oh shit!" Ranma jumped off her in a panic, pulling his shirt back on hastily as he ran towards Ryoga. "No! It's not what it looks like! Let me explain! Don't kill me, Ak..." He paused, as what Ryoga said filtered through his mind. He examined Ryoga's clothing carefully. "Uh...wait. Ryoga?" Ryoga stared back at him, puzzled. Ranma continued, very nervously, "Ryoga...uh, why do you-"

Ukyou's hands began to shimmer, her immense psi energy healing her before their horrified eyes. "RANMA SAOTOME!" she roared, her eyes blazing. "ENEMY OF WOMEN!"

Ranma and Ryoga began to tear off towards the clinic, with the infuriated Ukyou hot on their heels.

* * *

Ryu looked down the street and saw a short-haired, athletic-looking girl, carrying another girl over her shoulder, being chased by an attractive green-haired girl who looked sort of like a psycho, and running beside the first girl was...

"Ranma Saotome," he rumbled, grinning. Time to take out his frustrations on the person who deserved it most! Revenge was going to be sweet, sweet, sweet... He jumped towards the rapidly approaching trio. "PREPARE YOURSELF, SAOTOME!"

Ranma and the short-haired girl twisted neatly in mid-air, completely avoiding him. He turned his head around as he sailed in the wrong direction, shocked. Ranma...fleeing from a battle? What was-?

His thoughts were interrupted when he careened into the attractive psychotic girl, sending them both sprawling to the ground.

"Who are..." he trailed off, staring at the girl in horror. _It's her! Goddammit, why do I keep running into this crazy-_

His thoughts were again interrupted, this time by the girl's brightly glowing fist connecting with his face.

"You let him get away," she snarled, her very strange silver-gold eyes burning. Then she stared at him for a moment, recognition dawning on her. "Hey...it's you...you wrecked my restaurant about a week ago..."

Ryu swallowed, remembering how well their impromptu duel hadn't gone the last time they'd met. "Uh...yeah, look, I'm just-"

"...and then you attacked me, during our battle with the Zerg," she continued, her eyes glowing hotter and hotter. "Said something about how I ought to expect no mercy, and you wouldn't go easy on me just because I'm a girl..."

Ryu slid into a fighting stance, his anger overwhelming his sense of self-preservation. "You want some, girl?" he growled, tensing. "I think it's about time we had a rematch..." He stared at her, letting his anger build. _I can take her. I can take her. She's human right now, I can take her..._

She smiled. "Think so?"

Then she attacked, showing him just how sweet revenge really was.

* * *

"So...uh, how's there two of you?" Ranma asked lightly, as they ran.

Ryoga looked over at him, baffled. "Two of what?"

Ranma grinned insolently at her. "Man, you're uncute, Lost Girl."

She had no idea what was going on. "Shut up and keep running, Ranma."

"Hello, Akane, Ranma!" Dr. Tofu said, giving them a welcoming smile. He peered quizzically at the girl slung over Ryoga's shoulder. Her head was pointed away from him, so he couldn't see her face. "Is your friend hurt, Akane?"

Ryoga wondered if this was her day to be confused, and nodded. "Um...yeah, she got hit in the head or something during a brawl we were having..."

Yeah, that sounded real good.

Tofu grinned. "I guess brawling's sort of a way of life for you, huh, Akane?" he said lightly, rummaging through some paperwork on the front desk.

Ryoga continued to look confused.

Ranma smirked and poked Ryoga in the ribs. "I think he's talkin' to you, there, tomboy."

Ryoga put her fist in Ranma's face.

"I see you've cut your hair even shorter," Tofu was saying, conversationally. "It looks good! Anyway, I can take a look at your friend right now, if you like, just set her down in room number three over there..."

* * *

Ranma stood in the bathroom of Dr. Tofu's clinic, staring at himself apprehensively in the mirror, trying very hard not to think about what had happened with Ukyou.

"Well," he mumbled, turning on the faucet. "Here goes nothin'..." He dunked his head underneath the stream of water, and felt the familiar awkward twinge course through his, now her, body.

She looked at herself in the mirror.

Yep, still really, really, really, ridiculously good looking. She sighed despondently.

* * *

Ryoga walked into the women's bathroom of the clinic, took one look in the mirror, and fell away in a dead faint.


	8. Ryoga's Big Gay Date

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Curses:

_Akane - ?_

_Konatsu - Spring of Drowned Really, Really, Really, Ridiculously Good-Looking Blonde_

_Kuno - Spring of Drowned Zealot_

_Mousse - Spring of Drowned Life-Size Darth Vader Poster_

_Ranma - Spring of Drowned Really, Really, Really, Ridiculously Good-Looking Blonde_

_Ryoga - Spring of Drowned Akane_

_Ryu - turns into something different every time he gets wet_

_Shampoo - Spring of Drowned Cat_

_Tarou - Spring of Drowned Asshole_

_Ukyou - had her normal and cursed forms merged by Zeratul_

* * *

Part 8: Ryoga's Big Gay Date

Ryu staggered down the street, walking vaguely in the direction of the Tendo Dojo, his left arm in a sling and his soul burning with a pure black rage.

This was actually a pretty normal state of affairs for him.

"Ranma Saotome," he raged quietly, clenching his good fist. "Today is the day you DIE!"

He thought about that for a second. "Actually," he wheezed, stumbling forward, "Ranma Saotome and Meddling Psychotic Girl, today is the day you BOTH die!"

He threw his head back and began to laugh, and he caught sight of the ominously dark sky overhead. A roll of thunder sounded.

Ryu briefly reflected on how bitterly unfair life was, as the rain began to patter down.

* * *

Ryoga walked down the street, ostensibly in the opposite direction of the Tendo Dojo, his soul burning with a pure black depression.

This was actually a pretty normal state of affairs for him, too.

Akane had rapidly come to in the clinic. As Ryoga had staggered out of the bathroom, reeling from the self-induced faint that had brought his head in contact with the sink in precisely the wrong way, he had managed to catch the tail end of Dr. Tofu's diagnosis, and, as he arrived in the doorway of the treatment room, saw Akane tearfully hugging Ranma.

Hugging. Ranma.

He closed his eyes, nursing his grudges quietly. On some level, ever since Jusendo, and later the ultralisk, he had let himself accept that there really was something between Akane and Ranma. He had decided to cope with this, roll with it for Akane's sake. He had vowed once that Akane's happiness was all that truly mattered to him, and he strove to be true to that vow, in his own way.

But...Ranma! He ground his teeth together, his face a mask of fury. That cad! That two-timing, no-good womanizing _cad_! He had _kissed_ Ukyou! _Not just 'kissed,'_ he amended furiously to himself, _they were rolling around the ground, slobbering all over each other's faces, tearing each other's clothes off! Of all the disgraceful, honorless..._ His thoughts trailed off, unable to think of an insult great enough for the travesty that was Ranma Saotome.

He looked up at the sound of thunder, sighing. He raised his umbrella just in time to catch the first few drops of rain, and shivered in spite of himself.

"Just a girl," he mumbled, like a mantra, shaking his head, "just a girl, now...just a girl..."

He thought of a small black pig, and shuddered involuntarily.

"Hey there!"

He turned his gaze forward, surprised. People didn't usually try to talk to him when he was radiating depression and anger, as he was quite certain he currently was. He blinked. The speaker was a tall, cute, slender girl of maybe sixteen or seventeen, dressed in loose, wet clothing, with a mop of unruly bright pink hair and a happy, open smile.

"Uh...hi," he said, feeling his face flush slightly.

She kept smiling at him, seeming to enjoy his obvious discomfort. She giggled. "What's _your_ name?"

He watched her as she spoke, and couldn't help but notice how pretty she was. "Ryoga...Hibiki," he managed, swallowing. Why was she speaking to him?

She giggled again, putting her hand over her mouth girlishly. "Well, I think you're kinda cute, Ryoga Hibiki," she confided, grinning. She moved closer to him, watching him shy away with amusement. "You mind if I, like, share your umbrella?"

He felt his face burning. Share...the umbrella? "Uh...yeah...yeah!" he stammered. "I mean, no! That would be fine!" He watched her, noticing, with a start, that her left arm was bound up in a sling. "What...happened to your arm?"

She smiled at him. He turned away, embarrassed. She was really cute when she smiled. "Oh, it's nothing. I, like, got beat up by a meddling psychotic girl earlier." She sighed despondently. "But don't worry! It barely hurts!"

He blinked. A meddling psychotic girl? _Well,_ he reflected, trying not to stare at her, _sometimes it's better not to ask, I guess..._

"So like, where ya headed, Ryoga?" she asked him, threading her good arm through his.

He looked even more embarrassed, if that was possible. "I, uh...you know, nowhere in particular..."

She giggled. "That's cool! I like just walking in the rain, too." Her face lit up. "Hey, I know, we could, like, go to the mall!"

"The...the mall?" He tried not to look too baffled. Not only did he have no idea where the Nerima mall might be, he was quite certain that he had never been to _any_ mall in his entire life. "Um, yeah, that sounds good," he said, weakly. "Well, just...lead the way!"

She clasped her hand with his and did just that.

* * *

Nabiki, who put maximum energy alternately into avoiding the madness that surrounded her daily life, and attempting to turn a profit from it, had the great misfortune to be umbrella-less when the rain shower broke.

She stared down at her brand new blouse, sighing. "Figures," she muttered, trudging disconsolately along the sidewalk. She noted sourly that there were, of course, absolutely no overhangs or convenient shops where she could wait out the cloudburst.

She did note, with (slight) interest, that the angry young man stomping along about fifty feet in front of her suddenly transformed into an attractive young woman with bright pink hair.

She shook her head. How many people could seriously have gone to some mysterious training ground in the backwoods of China, anyway? And how did such a disproportionate number of them end up in Nerima?

Trudging onwards for a bit, in the general direction of the Tendo Dojo, she noticed that Ryoga was standing up ahead, his ever-present bamboo umbrella firmly in his hand. She grinned to herself. Maybe one of Ranma's destructive friends could actually be helpful for a change...

She began to run towards him, when she noticed that the guy-turned-pink-haired-girl evidently had the same idea, and, being a good fifty feet ahead of Nabiki, beat her to it.

"Damn," Nabiki grumbled, consigning herself to wetness.

She walked on, staying a good ways behind the happily umbrellaed couple, when she noticed that the pink-haired girl seemed to be flirting pretty heavily with Ryoga, and Ryoga actually seemed receptive to it.

Nabiki frowned. Ryoga was no friend of hers...but she knew that he was sort of a friend to Akane. "To interfere...or not to interfere?" she mumbled, mimicing Kuno in her mind. "That is the question."

Ryoga was looking hugely embarrassed, and stupidly happy, as the guy-turned-girl pressed herself close to him and smiled.

Nabiki sighed bitterly. "That's going a little far, just to get the umbrella, isn't it?"

The pink-haired girl latched on to Ryoga's hand.

"Okay," Nabiki grumbled, jogging briskly towards the unhappy couple, "interference it is."

* * *

Unknown to her, Darth Mousse lurked in the shadows, watching Ryoga impending catastrophe with glee.

He laughed to himself. "And here I thought I would have to destroy that fool Ryoga myself," he rumbled, a sinister smile on his face. "It is fortunate indeed that these tragic circumstances will destroy his soul for me, and all I will have to do is pick up the pieces." He chuckled. "Chalk up another one for the Dark Side!"

He frowned when he noticed Nabiki beginning to run towards Ryoga and Ryu. "No," he grunted, scowling deeply. "That foolish girl could ruin all my careful plans! I cannot allow this to happen!" He smiled evilly, and removed a chain saw from his robes. "Well...she can't interfere if she's a CORPSE, now can she?"

His laughter boomed through the alley as he revved up the chain saw and charged at her.

* * *

Living in the place that she did, Nabiki was unusually attuned to menace. Even if there was no outward indication of something threatening in the area, she had developed a sort of sixth sense that told her when something was wrong, and she was about to, for example, witness the destruction of her home by a bull-yeti monster or a fire demon-goddess. In this case, however, she did not need this highly developed sense, because she heard something very loud revving up and James Earl Jones's voice boom from an alley to her left:

"PREPARE YOURSELF, NABIKI TENDO!"

She took one look at the maniac running at her with a chain saw, and fled in terror down the sidewalk.

* * *

"RYOGA! RYOGA! HELP!"

Ryoga was so befuddled and embarrassed at the touch of the pink-haired girl that he didn't notice the terrified Nabiki Tendo barreling towards him until she almost crashed into him.

"Wh...what is it, Nab-" he began to ask, before noticing Darth Mousse charging after her, a chain saw roaring in his hands. "Holy shit," he swore, hastily snatching up Nabiki and the pink-haired girl and jumping to a nearby rooftop.

"I haven't seen you in so long, Ryoga," Mousse rumbled, grinning. He revved his chain saw a few times. "Come down here and allow me to give you a proper welcome."

"Oh my God! Ryoga!" the pink-haired girl whined, tugging at his sleeve. "They're, like, going to ruin our date!"

Ryoga clenched his fist. "Don't worry, I won't allow that to happen! Mousse!" He pointed at Mousse, still holding his umbrella carefully over his head. He had a feeling that his new acquaintance would not want to date him quite so much if she saw him turn into an Akane Tendo clone. "Get away from us! I'm not going to let you destroy my chance for happiness!"

Mousse's grin grew to epic proportions. "I haven't come to destroy your chance for happiness, old friend," he reassured him, laughing. "I've come to destroy YOU!" With one clean motion, he discarded his rumbling chain saw and removed a giant machine gun from his robes.

Ryoga began to charge up a truly massive shishi houkoudan in his free hand, the thought of changing sex in front of the pink-haired beauty propelling him to new depths of depression. Darth Mousse cackled and pulled the trigger.

The destruction of that particular block of Nerima commenced.

* * *

There were several paths from the clinic to the Tendo Dojo, but she knew which one to expect Ranma to take. She leaned casually against the wall, smiled, waited. Rain fell, briefly, then stopped.

Thirty-six minutes passed, and then he was beside her, alone, walking slowly, lost in thought.

"Hello, Ranma."

He looked over at her, a strange shadow passing before his blue-gray eyes. "Ukyou," he said, softly, guiltily.

She continued to lean indifferently against the wall, and flicked her silver-gold gaze over him, taking him in, assessing him. She smiled, a bare twitch of her lips. "Just Ukyou, now, huh?"

He stepped back from her, hesitantly. "Look, uh...about earlier..."

Her smile shrank almost imperceptibly. "Ranma." She spoke dryly, flatly, without emotion. "I don't forgive you."

That took him by surprise. Whether it was her words or the way she said them, he wasn't sure. "I'm...sorry, about earlier," he said, weakly, too little, too late.

"For earlier?" She stared at him, hard, then gave a short laugh, shaking her head. "You know what? I don't even care about earlier. You're a good kisser, Ranma," she told him, and her smile and voice took on a wistful edge. "I really think things might've worked out differently, between us, if the timing had been a little better, you know?"

He watched her, wordless. He had never had much skill with words, and he knew whatever he said right now would probably just make the situation worse, so he was silent.

The hardness returned to her smouldering silver-gold eyes. "But that doesn't matter now. You've chosen Akane." Her eyes glittered. "You know, Ranma, I always was the most worried about Shampoo. Isn't that funny? Never from the direction you expect..." Her voice trailed off, and she clenched her fists. "But I don't forgive you, Ranma. Not for ten years ago, and never for this last year." Psionic tendrils began to coalesce around her hands, until she was holding tiny silver-blue suns in her fists.

"Ukyou-"

"I challenge you, Ranma," she said, pushing herself easily away from the wall and standing up straight.

He stared at her for a moment, then something about his bearing shifted, and a confident gleam entered his eyes. They were back on familiar ground, now. This was something he knew how to deal with. This was something he could fight. He popped his knuckles, and sank into a fighting stance. "I accept."

Neither of them moved for three seconds, each silently watching the other, evaluating. Then Ukyou attacked.

The Anything-Goes Saotome School's most powerful aspect is its adaptability, the way its students are able to analyze their opponents' fighting styles and create counterattacks very quickly. If fighting an opponent whose capabilities were mostly unknown, therefore, Ranma's first instinct was to fight defensively, attempting to figure out their tactics and weaknesses as quickly as possible as they attacked him. It was something he had been doing for a long time, and was very good at.

He realized two things, very quickly: that Ukyou was without question the fastest person he had ever fought, and that she was fighting almost entirely on instinct. The first realization alarmed him, and he quickly found himself staggering back before the sheer overwhelming volume of attacks directed at him. She cut his elaborate defensive maneuvers to pieces simply by moving really, really fast.

_There's always an opening, if you're fast enough..._ he reflected grimly, giving more ground, fruitlessly trying to ease the assault. More hits landed on him, then more. He kept his face carefully neutral, but those hits _hurt_. _I can't take too much more of this, gotta do something..._

_Instinct. She's just fighting on instinct, _he thought, desperately, taking several more crushing punches to his midsection, staggering back. He watched her move, and it dawned on him that her fighting skills were entirely those of that strange curse she had obtained, and that she was just letting her body move, which meant that her ability to adapt was going to leave something to be desired...

Her eyes burned as she closed on him, lashing out fluidly, punches, kicks, subtle maneuvers through his defenses coming to her effortlessly, like she'd known them her whole life. _I'm breaking him down,_ she thought, triumphantly. _He's giving way. This will be over soon._ She landed a vicious series of attacks, sending him reeling back from her, stumbling to her left. She leapt after him hungrily, her hands and body a blur as she danced before him, around him, hitting him again and again, and he staggered back, stumbling again to her left, to her left, always to her left...

She was taken completely by surprise as the howling winds of the tornado ripped her from the ground, smashed her savagely through a wall, then sucked her towards the sky.

In the moment before she felt her head connect with the asphalt, she saw Ranma lower his fist and stand tall, smiling. "I win," he said simply, clearly.

Rain began to patter down, then everything went black.

* * *

Ranma knelt down and began to lift Ukyou's limp form from the asphalt when she heard the sound of gunfire in the distance. She looked up, alarmed. The sound was getting closer very quickly.

She stared in the direction of the sound. It was coming from the other side of this apartment block...

The air shimmered to her right as a kinetic energy blast so strong it was nearly incandescent ripped through the brick frame of the apartment building. Ranma stared at the residue from the blast, nodding wisely. "I'd know that heavy ki anywhere..." An especially sinister-looking Darth Mousse ducked through the hole in the wall, pivoted, and fired off a few dozen rounds from his machine gun haphazardly into the building.

Ranma started as Ukyou staggered to her feet, a milky bluish liquid oozing from the wound on her forehead. She watched, strangely detached, slowly realizing that the blue liquid was Ukyou's blood.

"Ukyou..." she said, staring for a moment, then turning his attention back to the maniac with the chain gun unleashing hell on the apartment complex.

Ukyou looked at the blood in shock as a drop fell from her cheek onto her right hand. "Blue," she said, trying to clear her head. "It's blue..."

Both of them turned their eyes skyward. Ryoga had bounded over the entire block, her bullet-ravaged umbrella in hand, howling with fury. Mousse laughed heartily when he saw that Ryoga was in female form.

"What's the matter, GIRL?" Mousse shouted, his face a mask of evil glee. "Did I ruin your precious little date?"

"SHE KNOWS!" Ryoga screamed, discarding the worthless umbrella and gathering the crackling energy in her cupped hands. "DARTH MOUSSE, PREPARE TO DIE!"

Ranma flinched. "This is gonna be ugly."

Mousse raised his machine gun at Ryoga's plummetting form and squeezed the trigger. Ryoga released the colossal energy gathered in her hands, and Ranma and Ukyou watched in fascinated horror as the kinetic energy from the shishi houkoudan perfectly cancelled out the energy from the hail of bullets. The shimmering blast stopped right as Mousse's machine gun ran out of ammunition, and the thirty-some bullets dropped harmlessly to the ground.

Ryoga and Mousse stared at each other for a moment, at a loss for how to react.

Mousse removed another chain saw from his robes. Ryoga began to rev up another shishi houkoudan.

* * *

"Ryoga! Ryoga!" The energy in Ryoga's hands fizzled as she turned toward the voice, her eyes bright with frustration. The pink-haired girl stood in the blasted-open apartment building, looking around plaintively into the rain.

Realization suddenly dawned on Ryoga. The girl didn't know that she was the same person!

Mousse came to the same realization, and smiled broadly at her. "Oh sweetie!" he called out to the pink-haired girl, grinning ear-to-ear. "This is your lover-boy, right he-"

Ukyou covered the ground between her and Mousse in about 1/50th of a second, smashing her fist cleanly into his temple. He didn't even have time to register his surprise before he crumpled to the ground in a boneless heap.

Ukyou smiled raggedly at Ryoga. "You owe me one, sugar."

Ryoga stared at her for a moment, her eyes wide. "Yeah...yeah, I do..."

"Who is that girl?" Ukyou asked her.

She laughed nervously. "I, uh...I have no idea."

"Your date?"

She swallowed. "Something like that, I guess."

Ranma grinned at Ryoga, nudging her in the ribs. "Ryoga, you sly dog, you..."

Ryoga turned to Ranma, the fury in her eyes changing to dumbstruck awe as she took in the truly shocking good looks of Really, Really, Really, Ridiculously Good Looking Blonde Ranma.

"..." Ryoga retorted smartly.

"You okay there, sugar?" Ukyou asked her, waving a hand in front of Ryoga's face.

Ryoga meant to fly into a murderous rage and bellow out, _RANMA SAOTOME! ENEMY OF WOMEN!_, but this somehow came out as a tremulous, "God, you're so beautiful..."

Ranma stared flatly at the staring boy-turned-girl. "Now, look here-"

The pink-haired girl jogged up to them, distressed. "Hey, like, have any of you guys, like, seen a really hot guy with like, an umbrella or whatever run by?" Her voice rose plaintively at the ends of her sentences. Very...very valley girl-ish.

Ukyou stared at the girl suspiciously. "Say, you sound kind of like a-"

"Oh, you mean Ryoga!" Ranma interrupted her cheerfully, patting the sodden, suddenly desperate-looking Akane-clone standing beside her. "This is him, right here!" Ryoga's eyes were wide with panic, something which completely escaped Ranma's attention. "He becomes a gi-"

Ukyou elbowed the shockingly pretty blonde in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. "What Ranma MEANS to say," she corrected her, archly, "is that this is Ryoga's LITTLE SISTER here, and that Ryoga, uh...got lost in that abandoned apartment building there, when he was fighting our beloved psychopath here."

The pink-haired girl clasped her hands before her face, her eyes shining. "Oh, he's, like, so totally brave! Like, we better go like, look for him or whatever, y'know?"

Something occurred to Ryoga. "Good God, that apartment building WAS abandoned, wasn't it?"

Ranma shrugged. "Dunno."

Ukyou stared at the building skeptically. "I think so. Or there would have been some alarms or lights or screaming terrified civilians or something when you two imbeciles were demolishing the ground floor. Anyway..." She removed a hot-water thermos from her small pack, which she had set down for her duel. "Maybe you should go look for her, hm, Ryoko?"

"'Ryoko?'" Ranma repeated.

Ukyou glared at him. "Sure, why not. Here." She tossed the thermos to 'Ryoko.' "Take this hot water. Might help. Never know."

The pink-haired girl, being an incredible ditz, assigned no significance whatsoever to this odd conversation.

As Ryoga darted into the building, Ukyou turned to face Ranma, scowling. She tried not to pay attention to Ranma's heart-shatteringly beautiful face. Even for someone with absolutely no attraction to girls, Ranma's appearance induced a state of blissful, disbelieving shock.

"Er...Ukyou?" Ranma said, hesitantly.

"This isn't over," she stated, matter-of-factly.

She sighed. "It isn't?"

Ukyou smiled bitterly at her. "I'll see you again soon enough, Ranma." She turned deliberately and stepped into the shadow of the broken wall beside them.

"Ukyou..." Ranma started, stepping into the shadow. She looked around, puzzled. Her pack was gone, and there was no sign of her anywhere. She turned at looked at the almost comically helpless-looking pink-haired girl, and shook her head. "Why do these things always happen to me...?"

* * *

Nabiki sat in front of her desk, still panting. She'd been sitting here for almost 15 minutes, and was still winded. She had run like hell all the way home, away from the chainsaw-wielding maniac that bore an uncanny resemblance to that Chinese guy that was always chasing Shampoo around. Mousse. He seemed like a bit of a maniac, too, come to think of it...

_You guys will never guess what just happened to me,_ she typed into her computer.

XxxxsephirothxxxX jumped up and down on her screen. _stfu and heal noob,_ he replied, laughing out loud.

_lolz,_ Deathroguezz noted, also jumping up and down, nonstop.

_shammy healing LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!111one1_ Bignastykillah chimed in.

_Seriously, I almost just got killed by this crazy dude with a chainsaw!_ Nabiki AKA Shamalicious typed, scowling.

_sux 2 b u_ _lolz,_ Deathroguezz replied, still jumping.

_QQ more nubcakes,_ XxxxsephirothxxxX said, laughing out loud.

_Man, fuck you guys,_ Nabiki retorted, disconnecting.

She sighed. If you couldn't count on your own guild, who could you count on?

She stared out of her window, a slow twinge of guilt seeping in. She was sure Ryoga wouldn't have too much of a problem ripping that guy - or pretty much anyone else - into pieces, although she felt vaguely wrong about just leaving the poor guy behind like that. Also, she never had managed to tell him that his newfound pink-haired love was actually Ryu Kumon's cursed form.

Ah, well, she thought, booting up a game of Civilization 4. He'll figure it out.

* * *

Ryoga walked carefully through the pouring rain, making sure to keep himself and his pink-haired date underneath the trash can lid. He smiled nervously at her, and she smiled back. His heart beat faster, and she giggled, clasping his hand tightly.

_God, she's beautiful,_ he thought, sighing softly.

_But what about Akari?_ a dark voice in his mind remonstrated him. He grimaced and tried to ignore it.

_But what about RANMA?_ an even darker voice in his mind put in. _Those eyes! Those LIPS! Those-_ He grimaced even harder and stomped that voice out with a ferocity normally reserved for attacks on Ranma himself.

The girl looked at him, smiling. "What's wrong?"

He laughed nervously. "Oh, uh...nothing! Nothing." He coughed. "Just, um, thinking about the mall!"

She giggled. "Like, totally! Oh my gawd, like, I'm so always thinking about the mall, too!"

He swallowed, trying to think about something other than the touch of her hands. "Um...oh, uh, by the way," he said, laughing, "What's your name?"

She smiled at him brightly. "Oh, my name's, like, Ryu! It's so totally nice to meet you!"

If Ryoga had been slightly less distressed about the rain and his continuing inappropriate thoughts about beautiful blonde Ranma, he might have caught the significance of that name. As it was, he remained blissfully ignorant. "Oh!" he said, laughing nervously again. "That's, ah, a very pretty name!"

She giggled and held on to his hand tighter.

Her voice somehow reminded him of something deeply disturbing, but he couldn't quite place what. For some reason, he vaguely associated it with Ranma. He shuddered.

* * *

Ryoga and Ryu's time at the mall passed like a dream. They came, they saw, they shopped extensively for absurdly cute little outfits for Ryu. This was actually a very bad thing for Ryoga, as his cash flow was essentially zero and he had only a small amount of living money in his battered old wallet, but he was too lovestruck to give it a second thought and happily spent the remainder of his pitifully limited cash on clothes for Ryu. He didn't even think about the money. He just stared at Ryu, in a joyful daze.

After their shopping spree, they had dinner at a wonderful (and pricey) Italian restaurant. Ryoga had, to the best of his recollection, never eaten at a real, sit-down restaurant in his entire life, but he didn't even taste the food as he ate it. He just gazed like a puppy at his newfound love.

After dinner, they went to a movie that Ryu selected, which was an extremely cheesy chick flick that Ryoga would normally have abhorred, but let's face it, Ryoga wasn't paying one iota of attention to the movie. Halfway through the movie, the two lovebirds were making out passionately in the back row, completely oblivious to the film.

"Ryu," Ryoga whispered breathlessly, in between kisses, "I...I think I'm falling in love with you."

"Oh, Ryoga!" she responded dreamily, giggling. "Like, oh my gawd! I, like, totally love you, too!"

They went back to making out.

Meanwhile, Nabiki was winning a pretty fierce game of Civilization 4.

* * *

Tarou stood at the counter, smiling mischievously at Ukyou. "So...is your assistant single, by any chance?"

Ukyou snorted back laughter. "Maybe." She watched Tarou for a moment, then sighed. "So...why'd you storm in like this? The word 'CLOSED' mean anything to you?"

"Not really."

"I see that. Did you want okonomiyaki, a date with my assistant, or something else?"

He grinned. It was nasty without really meaning to be. "All of the above, actually."

She grinned back. Hers was nastier, if possible, and her eerily glowing eyes enhanced the effect. She looked angry, and seemed to get angrier as she examined the splintered rubble that used to be her restaurant. "No okonomiyaki because the grill's cold and we're closed and my place is close to falling apart because you jackasses tore it apart. No date because my assistant's a man. What was the something else?"

His eyes widened. "Your assistant's a man?"

"Yep."

"Bullshit."

Her grin broadened. "In this town?"

His grin vanished. He scowled. "Anyway, real reason I came here is the something else."

She laughed. "Let me guess."

He narrowed his eyes. "Okay, guess."

"Revenge." Her silver-gold eyes gleamed when she said the word.

He tried to look nonchalant. "What makes you think I'm here for revenge, ma'am?"

"Why does anyone come to this town? It's always revenge." Her grin withered. "Speaking of revenge, you and the rest of them got some helping out around here to do. I'm done fixing up this place by myself."

Tarou looked around, gnawed his lip. "Yeah. It is a bit busted up, huh?"

"Yeah. A bit." Her voice was flat.

He shrugged. "Well, I'll level with you, ma'am. I am here for revenge. Against a couple of people, actually, but I think we've got a common enemy in Ranma Saotome. At least," he amended, grinning wickedly, "you seem to hate him well enough when you're not rolling around on the floor, kissing him."

Her lips twitched in a humorless smile. "Funny how that works, huh. Fine line, as they say. So. Let me make you a deal, Pantyhose, or whatever the hell your name is. You help me fix this place up, and I'll help you get even with Ranma."

Tarou looked at her quizzically. "Why would I help you fix this place up? You want to put fem-boy in his place just as much as I do."

Her eyes began to burn slightly. "How about this. Help me fix this place up, or I'll throw you out with a fun new curse from those bottles I've got stowed away upstairs for your trouble."

He watched her for a moment, considering. He was almost certain he could defeat her - or anyone else - in a one-on-one brawl, but he figured it was more important to have an ally at this point. He gritted his teeth at that. Gone were the wonderful days of needing no one's help and being able to rely solely on his monstrous form's power!

But Ranma had several friends, and Happosai was formidable as always. So he smiled at the strange green-haired girl and nodded his assent.

"Alright," he said, finally. "I'll help you fix up your store."


	9. Anti Heroes of the World Unite!

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Curses:

_Akane - ?_

_Konatsu - Spring of Drowned Really, Really, Really, Ridiculously Good-Looking Blonde_

_Kuno - Spring of Drowned Zealot_

_Mousse - Spring of Drowned Life-Size Darth Vader Poster_

_Ranma - Spring of Drowned Really, Really, Really, Ridiculously Good-Looking Blonde_

_Ryoga - Spring of Drowned Akane_

_Ryu - turns into something different every time he gets wet_

_Shampoo - Spring of Drowned Cat_

_Tarou - Spring of Drowned Asshole_

_Ukyou - had her normal and cursed forms merged by Zeratul_

* * *

Part 9: Anti-Heroes of the World Unite!

Through the not-quite-tightly-enough closed blinds of the small bedroom, the morning sun shone merrily.

This disagreed most violently with the bedroom's occupant, who had apparently not gotten to sleep until very late the previous night, and he gave the morning sunlight such a baleful glare that an onlooker might have suspected him to be a vampire. But his glare soon turned to a yawn, and he forced himself to clamber out of bed, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

Hikaru Gosunkugi was not an impressive-looking guy, and he knew it. With his skinny arms and legs, gaunt face, and wide dark eyes with heavy bags under them, he most likely could not have even struck fear into the heart of the most timid rabbit - and, to the misfortune of his already lacking self-esteem, he was more than aware of this.

He hated this. Almost as much as he hated that fool Ranma Saotome.

Gosunkugi gave another rather noisy yawn, slid open a dresser drawer, and began rooting through it purposefully. He smiled in his quiet, vaguely disturbing way and pulled out a worn-looking purple robe, feeling its warm, thick fabric with loving familiarity, and pulling it on over his shoulders.

Glancing in the mirror, he grinned again. It was voluminous to conceal his lanky frame nicely, and indeed, he very nearly looked imposing in the robe. He spun to one side, making the robe swirl about dramatically, and stuck his thin arm out in front of him, his long fingers outstretched, as if he was on the edge of casting a powerful spell of destruction. For a moment, any onlookers would have cringed, waiting for whatever sorcery was brewing in the room - a searing fireball, crackling blue lightning, a brilliant explosion, a blast of white-hot energy...but there was nothing, and the folds of the soft purple robe swirled to a quiet stop around the skinny ankles of the supposed wizard.

Sighing despondently, Gosunkugi strode over to a small wooden chest in a corner of the small apartment, opened it, and gently removed a thick, leather-bound book with shimmering silvery runes, unreadable to most people, emblazoned on the front. He could read them, though. Sort of.

"Why do I get the feeling," he wheezed bitterly, "that this book is a crock?"

He opened the front cover and began to slowly peruse the pages of the tome, each of them covered in roughly penned runes like the ones on the cover. His thin eyebrows knotted in annoyance as he quickly reached the conclusion that he was right - the runes on the pages were readable to his trained eye, but they meant nothing. Their translation either was too difficult for him to comprehend, which he privately doubted, or it was just a waste of perfectly good yen on a bunch of gibberish.

Deciding that it was the latter, he irately tossed the counterfeit spellbook into a corner, where several other impressive-looking, utterly worthless tomes were heaped up.

"I really am going to have to organize those someday," he mumbled. It was one of his many failings, talking to himself. Sometimes he had entire conversations with himself. He supposed that it came from being alone so much. "Who knows but that there might be a real spell buried by accident somewhere in the gibberish..."

He sat back down on the bed, scowling. It was just so _hard_ to find decent spellbooks these days, and it grated on him to no end. After all, he had established connections through the Internet that allowed him to purchase, through the black market, pretty much any spellbook in existence. The problem was that almost all of them he had bought thus far in such a manner had been frauds, and had all wound up in various states of disarray in his corner heap. Since each book set him back an average of about 300,000 yen, continuously purchasing them had put him horrendously in the red.

"And so," he muttered wryly, "the great and powerful magus is forced to find work. How amusing."

Actually, he didn't find it amusing at all, but he felt a little better about claiming to himself that he found it amusing rather than ranting on and on about how unfair life was. But where would he work?

When he got around to thinking about it, he realized that he really had no clue. He didn't have any talents that modern Japan would term 'useful,' and although he was certain he could acquire such talents given a little studying, he wasn't particularly interested in spending his valuable time studying such mundane things. After all, he had his few genuine spellbooks - the ones that had been purchased via real-life connection, rather than the Internet - that he was far from completely understanding, and they certainly were a better use of his time than, say, studying endless piles of boring garbage for the next seven or eight years so that he could one day hope to join the ranks of embittered middle management somewhere.

Glancing over at his alarm clock, he realized he was late for school. "Ah, well," he mumbled in the undertone that he always took when addressing himself. He quickly changed out of his purple robe into his bland school uniform. "It's not a big deal."

He walked to his front door, hunched over awkwardly under the weight of his bookbag, and found the newest member of the Furinkan High School Magic Users Club waiting there for him impatiently.

"Hey, Tsubasa," he greeted his fellow would-be wizard, smiling sheepishly. "How's it going?"

Tsubasa cracked a slight smile. "Hey." There was something oddly disquieting about the way he smiled. On the other hand, maybe it was just the fact that he was wearing a dress that was oddly disquieting. Well, when you were Hikaru Gosunkugi, you took friends where you could find them.

"So," Tsubasa said, once they'd started walking, "you know that old love spell that you found?"

Gosunkugi suppressed a bitter laugh. "Might not work? Has 1,698 absurdly hard-to-find components that would run about eleven million yen to get ahold of? Takes over a week to set up the incantations? That the one you're talking about?"

"That's the one," Tsubasa replied, still smiling. "Listen, I got an offer yesterday from this crime syndicate in China that could bring us a LOT of money..."

* * *

Tarou turned out to be remarkably industrious and handy. Between him, Ukyou, and Konatsu (whom Tarou gave a very wide berth), they had the place looking almost as good as new inside of a week. Ryoga stopped by on afternoon of the sixth day, carrying a small bucket containing a bar of soap and some shampoo. He looked uncharacteristically joyful and evidently wanted some free okonomiyaki. Ukyou dutifully bullied him into helping for the rest of the day.

Ukyou watched him with some interest as he helped patch together the broken booths and tables. He had mentioned that he did some whittling as a way to pass the time when he traveled, and he did indeed seem to have some skill at woodworking.

"So..." she prodded him. "What's the deal with you and that pink-haired girl, sugar?"

Ryoga blushed a deep crimson. "Well, uh...we're, that is, we're sorta dating, I guess."

She chuckled. "She know about your little problem yet?"

"She like pork?" Tarou inquired, grinning toothily. Ukyou wondered privately whether he was mocking Ryoga's old curse or just being obscene. Having lived with him for a little over a week, she concluded that it was probably both.

"Drop dead, Pantyhose," Ryoga grated.

"I should beat you senseless for that, pork loin," Tarou said, smiling.

Ryoga grinned, showing his fangs. "Try it, Pantyhose."

Ukyou stared daggers at them both. "Do you have any idea what I'll do to you two assholes if you get into a fight in here again?"

"Make out passionately with us?" Tarou suggested innocently.

Ryoga considered that. "Swear an oath of revenge against us and pursue us relentlessly for ten years?"

She smiled. "Ryoga's closer."

Tarou rolled his eyes. "So who's your pink-haired lover, bacon breath?"

"Just some girl," Ryoga growled, obviously not wanting to share any information with a notorious schemer like Tarou. "What do you care?"

Ukyou chuckled. "She seemed a bit...uh, intellectually lightweight, do you think?"

Ryoga hammered resolutely on a table support. "No! She's...well, she's sweet! She's pure! And she's, y'know, smart and stuff, kinda, once you get to know her..."

She watched him, her silver-gold eyes gleaming with unspoken laughter. She grinned broadly. "If you say so, sugar."

He scowled, continuing to hammer away. "Well, I say so."

"Dating an airhead, huh, pork chop?" Tarou put in, unhelpfully. "Probably a smart move, in your case. Smart, relatively speaking, I mean."

Ryoga snarled and punched him across the jaw, and Tarou staggered to his knees. He began to stand back up, furious, and landed two quick glancing punches to Ryoga's midsection.

Ukyou put a hand on Tarou's arm. Ordinarily he would have paid this no mind, but she was atrociously strong, and little cloud of psi energy around her hand was so hot it actually made his skin burn a little.

"Ryoga, you hit him," Ukyou said, her voice taut. "Tarou, you hit him back. You guys take this any further and I'll turn you both into paste. We clear?"

Tarou turned to face her, his eyes full of scorn. "You think I'm scared of you, Pancake?" He had taken to calling Ukyou 'Pancake' over the course of the week, knowing that calling her artistic okonomiyaki creations pancakes infuriated her.

Ryoga's anger suddenly left him. "Look, forget it. Fighting you is pointless. Truce, okay?" He stared at Tarou, his jaw set.

Tarou stared into Ukyou's smouldering eyes, licked his lips, then shrugged. "Sure, fine, truce. Whatever. Let's finish this damn job already."

* * *

Ranma wiped the sweat from his brow as he entered the Tendo home. His workout today, and for the past week, had been unusually intense, as he prepared himself for Ukyou's vengeance.

"Akane," he said, slowly, seeing her sitting alone on the porch, staring at the pond.

She stared at him, a vaguely haunted cast to her dark eyes.

"You're not lookin' so good, Akane," he said, watching her with concern. "Even more uncute than usual."

"Thanks, jerk," she said flatly, brushing out the folds of her sun dress. The same one she'd worn yesterday, he noticed.

Ranma sighed. "Still haven't tested it, huh."

She shook her head miserably.

He walked over to her and sat down just far enough away for their conversation to be awkward. "You oughtta just try it. Otherwise what are you gonna do?"

She cracked a small smile. "Day hike to Jusenkyo and pray for clear skies."

Ranma shrugged. "Look. I told ya, you were soakin' wet at the end of that brawl, and you were still you. I don't think any of that hot water got on you, so you probably got cured somehow."

She watched him critically. "How?"

"I dunno! There were so many crazy curses flying around during that fight who knows what happened! But it looked like you were cured to me, at the end." He crossed his arms over his chest. "You're so stubborn, Akane! Just jump into the pond, and I'll be standing by with a kettle of hot water to change you back if something happens."

She shuddered involuntarily. "What if...what if I turn into that horrible man again?" She shook her head, trying not to think about it. "Or that awful valley girl?"

Ranma fidgeted. "It should be one of those curses Konatsu brought back, I guess. I don't think there was any of Tarou's water left by the end."

She shook her head again, closing her eyes. "I just...I just can't do it, Ranma."

"Akane..."

He sighed, staring at her. She really could be stubborn. "Akane, next time you get caught in the rain, you're gonna find out anyway. And I might not be around with a kettle of hot water!"

They sat and stared at the rocks and the pond for a long while, silent, when a long roll of thunder sounded off in the distance.

Akane smiled her vanishingly small smile again. "Good thing I'm here, huh?" she said, her voice tinged with anger.

After a minute, rain started to fall softly. Akane stared into it blackly, then stood up abruptly and started to walk back inside.

"Akane."

She turned and looked at Ranma, annoyed. He stood up slowly beside her, with the expression of a little kid about to steal a cookie.

"What-" she started to say, when he shoved her out into the rain.

She stared at him, shocked. "Ranma, you-!"

He grinned broadly. "Told ya."

It took a few seconds to really register, and then she looked down at her unchanged body, and felt the cold raindrops pelting her face, and realized she was crying. A moment later, a beautiful blonde Ranma was laughing and dancing wildly with her through the rain, and Akane couldn't even think of being mad at her as they tumbled headlong into the little pond.

* * *

Ukyou nodded her approval. It was a slow nod, but it came at last.

"I'm glad you like it," Tarou grunted. "Since we've been slaving away on it for almost a week now." As much as he would have hated to admit it, he actually hadn't minded it all that much. Ukyou did, he reflected, deviate significantly from what he thought of as the ideal woman. Actually, she deviated from it in pretty much all possible ways. Except being attractive. She was attractive enough, in her odd, vaguely alien way.

_So she's not exactly human,_ he considered, his mouth twisting. _That's pretty high on my list of requirements for a girl. Same species._

She was also rough-spoken and almost as uncouth as he was, which didn't bother him half as much as he would have thought. And she was obviously powerful, and violent, and vindictive as hell. Not quite his vision of the perfect demure girl.

_I'm a young guy,_ he thought, shrugging. _And she's hot. Seriously, what other motivation do I need to like being around her, anyway?_ Too bad she'd shown absolutely no interest in him. But then, what girl would be interested in a guy named Pantyhose? He didn't exactly blame her.

"So," Tarou ventured, sipping on a Sapporo beer that he'd lifted from her cooler.

Ukyou watched him for a moment. "Did I say you could take a beer?"

He grinned toothily. "You didn't say I couldn't."

She smiled her impish, lopsided smile. She looked much more human when she smiled. "Well, you can't. Not without getting me one."

He laughed and threw her a tall boy from the cooler. She caught it, spun it, tapped it, opened it, and took a long pull, all in one long fluid motion. "I see your beer drinking skills are well-honed," he observed, amused.

She shrugged, setting the can down on the counter. "Gotta drink with the regulars, right?"

He stood on the other side of the counter and watched her. She returned his gaze, her unsettling eyes cold as ice. "Can I ask you a personal question, Pancake?"

Her eyes glimmered a bit. She took another sip of her beer. "No."

He grinned broadly at her. "You human?"

She took a long look at him, her eyes narrowed. He had the odd feeling she was deciding whether or not to confide in him or destroy him.

"I'll take that as a 'no,' then."

She laughed. It was a short, sardonic laugh, but there was genuine amusement behind it. "I was human. Long story. Think I am still, mostly, but who can say?"

Tarou thought about pressing the issue further, then decided against it. There'd be other times for it, and she didn't look like she was inclined to share any more details right now. _What the hell is the part that isn't human, though?_

He set his beer down on the counter. "Down to business, then, Pancake. Now that I've fulfilled my end of the bargain, it's time for us to destroy fem-boy."

Ukyou looked at him for a minute, then burst out laughing. "What the hell is 'fem-boy?'"

He glared at her. "It's my loving nickname for my buddy Ranma, what did you think?"

She giggled. "Fem-boy? Pancake? Pork loin? We're all deeply wounded by your endless wit, Pantyhose."

He smiled humorlessly. "Glad to hear it. So, you got a plan in mind, or are we winging this?"

She ignored him, taking another drink from her tall boy. "Why do you hate Ranma, anyway?"

Tarou shrugged. "Doesn't everybody hate Ranma? He's just a jerk."

"Coming from you, I'd think that was a compliment."

He looked vaguely offended. "I'm not a jerk. I'm awesome. I even wanted to change my name to Awesome Tarou to reflect that fact!"

She guffawed. "'Awesome Tarou!' Good one."

"You're trodding on my life's dream there, Pancake."

She kept laughing. "'Awesome Tarou.' Didn't you kidnap Akane a while back and hold her hostage on top of a mountain or something? I thought Ranma mentioned that. Doesn't sound like such an awesome thing to do, especially since your plan obviously failed."

He scowled. "Well, it failed because of that jerk Ranma. That's another reason I hate him. He foiled my plan!"

She laughed harder. "'Foiled my plan,'" she repeated, cackling into her beer. "My EEEVIL plan! You sound like a James Bond villain!"

"I'm not a villain," he grumbled. "I'm an anti-hero!"

"Meaning what?" she asked, teasing. "You're heroic, but you're real angsty and brood a lot?"

"Meaning that I'm out for a good cause!" he said defensively. "That's all."

She raised an eyebrow. "And what might that good cause be?"

"Changing my name to Awesome Tarou," he declared confidently. "And, sometime down the road, hopefully taking over the world, as well."

She roared with laughter, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Oh my god! You're out of your fucking mind!"

"Way to piss on my dreams there, Pancake," he growled, draining the last of his beer. "Anyway, if you're done bringing me down, I'd like to hear what you have in mind for crushing fem-boy."

"Right, right," Ukyou said, still shuddering with mirth, trying very hard not to crack up again. "So, right, here's what I see us doing..."

* * *

Ryoga looked up as Ryu entered the room, drying herself with a bright orange towel. He averted his eyes, flushing a furious red, and quietly thanked his lucky stars that he had been able to find his way back to his home from the store...for the second time in a row! Surely this was fate!

"Sorry again that there's no hot water," Ryoga apologized for the third time that day. "I'm not around much, and I guess my parents haven't been, either, so no one's paid the heating bill for a while!" He quietly cursed that fact. He'd had to bathe in the public baths since they'd come home, to keep her from discovering his cursed form...

Ryu giggled. Her bright pink hair dripped water onto the carpet. "Oh, don't worry, cutie! I told you, my skin's, like, totally sensitive to hot water anyway!"

Ryoga caught a brief glimpse of her as she slipped into the closet, closing the door behind her. He felt his face burning. _One of these days I'll work up the nerve to do something besides just kiss her,_ he vowed silently, scowling, and trying not to let his mind slip to thoughts of Akari.

He wondered absently about Ryu's odd past. And her name. Ryu. Such a strange name for a girl. She'd mentioned that her only family had been her father, and he'd died when their house collapsed on him. She was pretty vague about what she'd been doing since then.

He pulled out his wallet, sighing despondently. He was very close to being broke. He and Ryu had taken two more trips to the mall, and spent nearly all of Ryoga's remaining traveling money on...Ryoga supposed the majority had been on shoes. What on earth did a person need so many shoes for, anyway? He began counting on his fingers. She'd bought no less than eight pairs of shoes in the past week.

The doorbell rang.

He stared down the stairs blankly. Who on earth would come to visit him? Who even knew he lived here?

He considered that. Ranma, Akane, and Akari. He wasn't sure he particularly wanted to see any of those three right this minute. _Well,_ he thought, _maybe it's mom or dad, finally found their way home for a bit. That's be great! I could introduce them to Ryu, and maybe I wouldn't seem like such a total loser for once...!_

With that thought firmly in mind, he answered the door when the bell rang again.

Akari smiled gently at him, her face as beatific and loving as always. "Um...hi, Ryoga," she said, lingering awkwardly outside his door.

His eyes widened. "Um...um...hi. Akari. Uh, oh man. How...uh...how've you been? I was trying to get in touch with you..." Not for the first time, the uncomfortable thought flitted through his mind: _So THIS is what Ranma feels like..._

"I know," Akari said, her smile turning a bit sad. "I'm sorry I never came by. Can...can I come in?"

"Um...um..." Ryoga's mind worked furiously, but he couldn't think of any polite way to say no. "Sure! Yeah, of course, come in!" Maybe Ryu was still getting dressed. Hell, Ryu would probably be getting dressed for about an hour, if history was any guide! And she'd be in that closet for that whole time. Well, most of the time. Some of the time. Probably. Maybe. _Dammit._

"I'm really sorry I didn't come by the hospital," Akari said, setting her bag down by the door. She removed a small thermos of hot tea from her bag and took a short sip from it. "I would have, and I wanted to, Ryoga, but..."

"It's okay!" he said quickly, laughing nervously. "Um. I mean, yeah, it really stunk that I didn't get to see you, you know, but...ah..." He strode into the kitchen. "Are you hungry? Oh, in fact, there's no food here, so if you're hungry, I guess we'll need to leave the house to eat! Heheh."

She stared at him for a moment, worried. "Are...you alright, Ryoga? You seem very...I don't know, nervous."

"No!" he said, resolutely. "Wait! I mean, yes, I'm alright. I'm not nervous, I'm just, I've uh...been drinking. Coffee, I mean. A lot of coffee."

She looked at him, slightly amused. "I didn't know you drank coffee, Ryoga."

He laughed. His voice cracked slightly. "Er, well, yeah! I don't, I mean. That's why I'm so strung out right now. Not used to it, you know?"

She watched him for a minute, feeling more and more awkward. "Well, um, maybe you should cut back a little. You do look a little strung out."

He nodded a fierce affirmation. "I am. I should. I will!" He glanced nervously over at the stairs leading to his bedroom. "So...you hungry? We can go out for sushi. Or pizza. Or...something. Sushi pizza! Hahahaha! Boy, that sounds good!"

She giggled. "That sounds horrible, Ryoga. But no, I'm not hungry, thank you." The humor faded from her voice. "Look, I needed to talk to you about something...maybe we could go up to your room for a bit?"

Ryoga swallowed, sweating like the lying bastard he knew he was. "Yeah. Yeah! Sure, of course. I mean, why not?"

He followed her slowly up the stairs, with all the enthusiasm of a man headed to the gallows. _I'm doomed._

He and Akari sat down across from each other. He sat on the edge of his bed, and she sat gingerly in his cheap plastic office chair. Ryu, thankfully, was silent. Ryoga supposed she was admiring herself in the mirror. She seemed to spend a lot of time doing that. Although she was certainly going to come out when she heard them talking. Unless she had her headphones on. Maybe she had her headphones on! The thought gave Ryoga new hope.

All of a sudden, it came crashing down. Who the hell was he trying to fool?

_I should just tell her,_ he thought, grimacing slightly as he looked at her. _But how do I say it?_

"Ryoga," Akari said, her eyes downcast, "I'm not sure how to say this, so I guess I'll just come out with it. I've, um...I've met...someone."

Ryoga stared at her, not quite comprehending. "You've...what?"

Akari's face was flushed bright with shame. "I've met someone. A guy. Kenji. He's...I'm so sorry, Ryoga. You don't know this, but my grandfather passed away while you and your friends were gone in China, and...well, Kenji was there for me, and I sort of, well..." She trailed off, staring at the carpet dismally.

Before Ryoga could even think of framing a response, Ryu burst out of the closet, dancing obliviously to the music blaring through her headphones.

Ryoga and Akari both turned and stared at her. Ryu reached into her glossy pink purse to turn down the volume, completely unaware that anything was amiss. She was dressed in a short skirt (that he'd bought her), high heels (that he'd bought her), and a very revealing, bright red tube top (that he'd bought her). "Hey, cutie," she babbled, smacking her bubblegum loudly, "so like, oh my god, do you think that these shoes, like..." She trailed off, still smacking her gum, as she realized there was another person in the room.

Ryoga turned from Ryu, to Akari, back to Ryu, back to Akari. "Um...right. Uh. Akari...this is Ryu...Ryu...Akari."

Akari stared at the garishly dressed pink-haired girl darkly. "And who are you, exactly, Miss Ryu?"

Ryu stared bitchily at Akari, her hands on her hips. "Uh, I'm like, totally Ryoga's girlfriend! Hel-LO! Like, who are YOU?"

There were tears in Akari's eyes. "Akari Unryu. I was...I was...forget it!" She flung her thermos of hot tea at Ryu's face and stormed from the house, weeping.

Ryoga stammered, and began to chase her. "Akari, wait! Wait! I...I..."

The thermos, being of a good quality, of course stayed closed when it hit Ryu.

Ryu frowned prettily at the bruise the thermos had left, and looked plaintively at Ryoga. "Like, Ryooo-GA!" she whined. "That thermos, like, totally hit me!"

Ryoga stared mournfully out of his front door at Akari, who had already mounted her giant pig and charged off down the road, still crying.

Ryu strutted up beside him, her high heels clacking loudly against the wooden floor, and winked at him, giggling. "So, like, we gonna go shopping again today, cutie?"

He stared at her for a moment. "Sh...shopping? Uh, I dunno, I don't...I don't really have any money left..."

She stared at him archly. "Like, Oh. My. God. You are NOT serious."

"Well...well..." Ryoga stammered. "But...you spent it all! On shoes and stuff!"

She smiled, hefting several large shopping bags full of clothes and shoes. "Ohhh! You mean, like, THIS stuff!"

Ryoga nodded, not quite sure what to say. Why was she carrying all that around with her?

She giggled ditzily, and began to walk out the door, loot in hand. "Oh my god, well, like, thanks for the clothes and stuff, cutie! On to the next guy!"

He stared at her in horror. "Next...guy? But...but..." He grasped for the words. "But I...I love you!"

She rolled her eyes, punching a number into her cell phone (that he'd bought her). "Oh my gawd, what-EVER! Like, as if! I am so sure!"

He followed her outside, dazed, as she began to giggle and chat with someone on the phone. "Oh, like, hiii there, Shutaro!" she exclaimed, twirling her hair. "Yeah! It's me, Ryu, from, like, the club or whatever a couple of nights ago! Oh my god, like, totally! Well, like, I was wondering if you could, like, come pick me up!" She continued to babble happily into the phone as Ryoga trudged soullessly after her.

_At the very least,_ a tiny, ironic voice in his mind told him, _this couldn't possibly get any worse._

"R...Ryu..." Ryoga was stammering, trying to get a word in over her very loud cell phone conversation.

It began to rain.

Ryoga stared down at herself. _I stand corrected,_ she thought, laughing a very hollow, silent little laugh.

Ryu noticed Ryoga's sudden gender change and giggled at her unpleasantly. "Um, eww."

"The world...is a dark and lonely place..." Ryoga intoned, staring blackly into the rain.

A sharply dressed man in a Mercedes pulled up to the curb, grinning at her. Ryu winked at Ryoga and blew her a kiss as she climbed in.

The man grinned broadly at Ryu, then looked over at the very distraught Ryoga. "You comin' too, babe?" he called out. After a moment, he shrugged, revving the engine. "Guess not."

Ryoga sank to her knees as she watched them drive off, and felt the depression begin to gather in her hands.

Nabiki, meanwhile, was getting a little bored with Dawn of War, but kept playing it, because really, what else was there to do around here?

* * *

The limousine taxi pulled up silently to the curb.

"This is the address, sir," the driver told him.

The regal-looking man in the front seat scowled. "I can't believe we're back in this lousy town again."

"This town..." said a wolfish-looking kid in the backseat.

"...is a make-you town..." continued the burly guy sitting next to him.

"...or a break-you town!" the first kid finished.

Herb turned around. "What?" he demanded.

Mint and Lime ignored him, and went back to jamming silently on their brand new iPods.

"Imbeciles," Herb grunted. He turned to the driver and nodded brusquely. "Yes, this is the place. Mint! Lime! This is where we get out."

He paid the driver, and the three of them hopped out of the limo, luggage in tow. Herb looked around, and thought about their next course of action. He sighed. Mint and Lime seemed in love with the strange technologies of this place, but he was the prince of a great people. He had no business being here, again, so far away from his beloved Musk Syndicate. But their journey came with a noble purpose, one even a prince could be proud of. He straightened his sharp black suit.

"It's a miserable town," Mint suggested.

"It's a nowhere town," Lime agreed.

Herb nodded grimly. "Yes. It is. Well, we should not have to be here long, with any luck."

"I am leavin' this town," Mint said.

"You better believe that I'm leavin' this town," Lime affirmed, nodding his head rhythmically.

"Soon enough," Herb promised. He put on his mirrored sunglasses and looked around, wrinkling his nose. "Let's go."

* * *

The following evening, Ukyou and Tarou stood at the counter of the newly reopened Ucchan, although the sign out front now read 'Ukyou's Okonomiyaki Shack.' Business was decent, although being closed for such a long time had put a dent in her clientele. Hopefully once she'd been open for a few days, the flow of customers would pick back up.

It was closing in on ten o'clock, and what few customers there were were finishing up and slowly trickling out.

Ukyou cleaned her grill methodically, and Tarou sat at the counter, looking like a cat ready to pounce. Tomorrow was the big day. She watched the last of the customers leave, and walked over to lock the door.

A customer stumbled in.

Ukyou sighed. More customers were always good, but she was really ready to close up, and...

She stopped and stared at the new arrival. "A...Akane?"

The girl staggered to the counter and sat down heavily. She exhaled loudly. Her breath smelled very strongly of liquor.

"Name'sssh RYOGA," the girl slurred, staring at Ukyou, trying to get her into focus.

Ukyou let out a long breath. "Oh. Good god."

Even Tarou was without a quip for once. "What the hell happened to you?"

Ryoga let out a long, crazed laugh. "I'm durrRUNK outta my fuckin' mind, that's what happened! JIM BEAM'S what the hell happened, whoever the hell you..." She realized who she was talking to, and cackled. "Oh shit! Pantyhoshh! Good t'shee ya buddy!"

Tarou was too taken aback to be offended at the use of his first name. "Uh. Yeah. Good to see you, too..."

Ukyou just stared at the wasted Akane-lookalike, at a loss for words. It was very disconcerting to listen to the normally reserved Ryoga shouting like a drunken lunatic, notwithstanding the fact that he currently was, in fact, a drunken lunatic. That he looked exactly like Akane significantly amplified the weirdness.

"Pantyhoshh, man," Ryoga slurred, putting her hand on Tarou's shoulder. "I gotta fuckin' hand it to ya, man, you were right about that fuckin' lousy, no-good, airheaded whore that I was seein', man! I mean, GOD DAMN! That girl was Dumb. As. Shit." She laughed maniacally. "But she was smart enough to take all my fuckin' money and run off with some rich asshole in a Mercedes! And Akari dumped me for some fucker named Kenji! I'm gonna tear their heads off!" She seemed about to fly into a murderous rage, then broke down and started sobbing instead.

Tarou shrugged and looked at Ukyou. "Hey, she WAS an airhead! Gold-digger, too. I was right!"

Ukyou gave him a withering stare. "Shut up, Pantyhose." She turned a more sympathetic eye towards Ryoga's weeping form. "Hey, uh...c'mon, sugar, don't be so down."

She sobbed all the more fiercely. "Why shouldn't I be down?" she wailed, choking back her tears. "I wassh HAPPY with her! HAPPY! And now I got NOTHIN'!"

Ukyou considered that. Nothing really came to mind as to why Ryoga shouldn't be down at this particular moment. "Um...well, I guess maybe it's okay for you to be a little bit down then. Try not to, you know, blow anything important up, though."

Ryoga sort of laughed through her sobs. "Blow anysshing important up, huh? Ya mean like my housh?" She threw back her head and howled with laughter. "Yeah, that'sh right, didn'tcha hear it on the newsh? There's a god damn crater where the Hibiki household usht ta be!"

Tarou examined her critically. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen anyone as drunk as you before."

Ukyou thought of something. "Well, look at the bright side, sugar. You didn't have much to lose, so at least that pink-haired minx didn't sink her claws into you for very long!"

Tarou nodded wisely. "Truth. I mean, what if you'd been a millionaire, and been with her for years? How screwed would you feel then?"

Ryoga pounded on the counter and howled. "FUCK YOU, RYUUUU!" she screamed at the unoffending ceiling.

Ukyou blinked, then cleared her throat. "The...uh, wait, your girlfriend's name was RYU?" She thought about that for a moment, horrifying possibilities drifting to the surface. "No. No way. That's got to be a coincidence..."

Ryoga didn't respond. She was already fast asleep, her head resting on the cold countertop.

Tarou looked over at Ukyou quizzically. "So, uh...what do we do with the insane drunk girl?"

Ukyou sighed. "What do you think? She's getting the futon." She smirked at Tarou. "And that means you get to enjoy the floor tonight, Pantyhose."

"Dammit," Tarou grumbled, as he helped Ukyou heft Ryoga's awkward, snoring form upstairs to Ukyou's living quarters. "Hey, you see this, Pancake? Me helping carry a poor drunk girl up the stairs so she can steal my bed for the night? Would a villain do this? No. You know who would do this? An ANTI-HERO, that's who."

"Yeah, well, I guess you're just awesome, Tarou."

"True story."


	10. The Unforgettable Ukyou

Part 10: The Unforgettable Ukyou

Herb looked at the assembled group with distaste. The dank basement room was private enough, he supposed, but he had expected something at least a little more...regal.

"They're not exactly professionals," his contact in Shanghai, a loathsome slob of a man called Big Wang, had admitted. "But the Syndicate isn't exactly big news yet in Japan, either. But don't worry, they've assured me they can get you what you're looking for."

Herb was beginning to doubt Big Wang's wisdom. But, like the council back at the Syndicate had said, you had to start somewhere. And somewhere, in this case, was the 'headquarters' of the Furinkan High School Magic Users Club.

"So, I've heard that you're a prince!" the gaunt young man in the bright purple robes gushed, staring at him with wide, obviously sleep-deprived eyes. "I'm Hikaru Gosunkugi. It's a true honor to meet you, your highness!"

Herb allowed himself to smile. Grovels were always nice. "The honor is mine, Mr. Gosunkugi."

"I'm Tsubasa," the petite brunette beside Gosunkugi drawled, much less politely, smiling lazily at him. "You must be rich." Dressed in a traditional schoolgirl's uniform, she was pretty enough, but there was something about her that Herb found disturbing.

"Rich enough, miss," Herb replied, shrugging. He looked over at Mint and Lime, who, oddly, seemed to be having no reaction at all to Tsubasa's presence. "Mint!"

Mint obediently marched over to the table and set down a small briefcase.

Herb watched the group closely. There were six others, all of them as peculiar as the first two. "Half the money's here. You'll get the other half afterwards. Now..." He removed a computer printout from his coat pocket, smoothed it carefully, and placed it on the table. It was a picture he'd downloaded of a breathtakingly beautiful woman, her bright golden hair shining in the sun. "Tell me your plan."

* * *

Ryoga sat at the small table in Ukyou's bedroom, in male form again, his head splitting. "I hurt," he managed to get out, between small moans of agony.

Tarou laughed. Ukyou patted his shoulder sympathetically, sipping from a steaming cup of green tea. "Been there, sugar."

"First hangover?" Tarou asked him, grinning ear-to-ear.

Ryoga planted his head miserably on the table. "Yes."

Tarou laughed again.

"Anyway, you're welcome to crash here for the day if you want, sugar," she said, glancing over at Tarou. "We've got some business to attend to, so we'll be gone for a while."

Ryoga didn't move. "Don't leave me."

"Your whining amuses me," Tarou told him, unhelpful as usual.

Ryoga whimpered. "I'd pound you if I could move."

"Like you pounded that guy that stole your girlfriend? Or that other guy that stole your other girlfriend?"

"I hate you so much."

Ukyou winced. "That was harsh, Pantyhose. Even for you."

Ryoga sighed dismally. "I hate the whole world and everybody in it."

She looked at him, amused. "Even me?"

"I guess so. Nothing personal."

Tarou snorted back laughter. "So, we going to destroy fem-boy's world, or we gonna coddle Sobby McEmopants here all day?"

Ukyou looked at him skeptically. She swirled her green tea. "'Sobby McEmopants?'"

"...that was kind of weak, huh," he muttered.

She nodded. "Probably not as bad as 'pork loins,' though."

"I sort of liked that one."

"You know what, Pantyhose?"

"Yes."

Ukyou blinked. "Uh...you do?"

He gave a perfunctory nod. "I know pretty much everything, so it stands to reason I know whatever it is you're about to say."

Ukyou shook her head. "You're weird."

"See? I already knew you thought that."

"That wasn't what I was going to say before!"

"You lie."

"I do not!" she protested indignantly.

Tarou emitted an evil little chuckle.

"You know what?" she asked.

"Yes."

She brushed that aside. "I don't think it's your NAME that's keeping you from finding a girlfriend, Pantyhose."

"Of course it is. I'm strong, handsome, and charming. What else could it be?"

Ukyou smirked. "Your claim to know pretty much everything is falling to pieces."

Ryoga kept his head on the table, ignoring their banter. "So, you guys are going to destroy Ranma's world, huh?"

Ukyou glanced at Tarou sourly, then shrugged. "Yeah. Looks that way, anyway."

Ryoga grunted. "That's my job."

She giggled. "Maybe when you're feeling better, sugar."

"What're you guys going to do?"

Ukyou was aware that Ryoga and Ranma were almost friends on some level, so she wasn't particularly inclined to share the details of her plan with him. "Well, it's just-"

"Oh, it's brilliant," Tarou cut in, grinning toothily. "See, we're going to take that last vial of valley girl water that Konatsu brought back and dump it on Ranma. I've already called Happosai into town for the joyous occasion. Then we figure it'll be a cakewalk to set valley girl Ranma up with the old pervert, and since the letch will know he's got me to thank for it, he's going to reward me with a new name! It's PERFECT!"

Ukyou stared at him with horror. "That's not the plan, you idiot."

Tarou grinned even broader. "No?"

"No!" she said, scowling. "That's not even remotely what we discussed! That's a completely horrible plan!"

Tarou cackled. "It is horrible! That's the point! Horrible for FEM-BOY!"

"No, it's horrible because it's stupid and it won't work," she told him curtly. "Tell me you did not seriously already call Happosai into town for this."

"Oh, but I have."

She buried her face in her hands. "What is WRONG with you?"

Tarou smiled. "I'm very anti-heroic. Lesser minds cannot comprehend. Anyway, I went ahead and stowed Konatsu's waters away in a nice safe location, so YOUR pathetic plan has no chance of success without me!"

"By anti-heroic, you mean evil?" Ryoga interjected mildly.

Ukyou's eyes began to glow with rage. "You stole my water?"

Tarou laughed. "I did! By the way, speaking of water, how's that tea?"

She looked down at the cup of hot tea in her hand. "It's...what?"

"That sounds about right."

"Wha..." She tried to stand up, then shuddered, then collapsed. Tarou punched Ryoga cleanly in the back of the head, which, in his weakened state, knocked him off into la-la land.

* * *

When Ryoga came to, he was still on the floor of Ukyou's little apartment. He was bound arms, hands, and feet with tough nylon cord. "U...Ukyou?" he managed, staring about blearily.

Ukyou, also tied up, was still unconscious. Ryoga slowly wormed his way over to her and nudged her with his toe. She didn't move.

He stopped poking her, and lay back down, his head throbbing. _Well,_ he thought, sighing. _Life sucks. _At least Tarou had evidently decided to leave the two of them alone, aside from tying them up. Ryoga was very aware that he could be a rat or a pig or an emu or something right now.

After about fifteen minutes of listening to himself breathe and consoling himself by imagining all the horrible things he was going to do to Tarou, Kenji, and that jerk in the Mercedes, Ukyou finally began to squirm.

She stared around for a minute, not comprehending.

"Hiya, Ukyou," Ryoga greeted her, smiling sourly.

She continued to squirm, making agitated noises.

He wormed his way beside her. "Yeah, these ropes are pretty tight, huh?"

She flipped over to face him, her eyes wide. He flinched slightly. Her face was about two inches away from his, and the closer he was, the more obviously alien her glowing eyes were.

"So," he said, after a moment of awkward closeness, "trusting Pantyhose Tarou was not one of your better ideas."

She stared at him flatly in response, and he met her gaze evenly. _I'm not panicking! _he realized, with a start. At the very least, he should have been sweating bullets and close to fainting from being this close to a girl!

She raised an eyebrow. "Why would you be panicking?"

He stared. "Did...did I say that out loud?"

"Yes..."

"No!"

She sighed. "What?"

"I...I..." Ryoga bit his lip, frowning. _I know I didn't say that out loud! Or else I'm really losing my marbles... _He grimaced slightly. _After yesterday, I guess that wouldn't be too surprising._

She watched him sympathetically. "Your marbles are fine, sugar. I think anybody would take what happened to you pretty hard."

He stared at her, eyes wide.

"Seriously," she said, a bit of worry creeping into her voice.

"I...didn't say that out loud, either."

"What? I just..."

"I didn't," he said, emphatically.

She chuckled. "Either you're wrong, or I'm a mind reader."

He continued to stare at her, eyes wide. _Good god, she's a mind reader._

Her eyes also grew wide. "Oh man. I definitely didn't see your lips move that time." She thought for a moment, then focused on his face intently.

"Are you reading my mind?" Ryoga asked, sweating nervously. "Right now? Because it looks like you are, and if you are I think you should stop because I really don't want you to read my mind and-"

She stopped. "Uh...right. Sorry." She paused for a moment. "So, uh...I don't make you panic, which is your typical reaction around girls, either because I'm not quite human or because you've matured and become embittered as a result of your horrible experiences with Ryu and Akari. Or both. You never actually did anything but kiss Ryu a few times and you're not sure whether that makes you seem more or less imbecilic. Also you're secretly harboring a tragic love for Ranma's blonde half, and you feel terrible about it because you're scared that might make you gay. You find that idea particularly terrifying because you're half-girl. And you used to be P-Chan, Akane's pet pig."

She stared. "Didn't P-Chan SLEEP with Akane?"

Ryoga closed his eyes and whimpered softly. "I hate my life."

"Sorry." She looked embarrassed for a moment, but her fascination quickly overwhelmed her embarrassment. "Well I gotta tell you, sugar, nobody ever panics around me. I mean, I successfully convinced everyone around me that I was a guy for most of my life. That doesn't come from being a pheromone-drenched beauty queen, let me tell you. I think it's kinda cute that you were too shy to do anything with Ryu, but yeah, I have to say, given what I saw of that girl, you're pretty much the most gutless guy in the whole world. I don't think harboring a tragic love for Ranma's blonde half makes you gay. I'm halfway in love with Ranma's blonde half myself, and I have no interest in other girls whatsoever. And that's really disturbing that you used to be P-Chan."

"A mind-reading psychologist," he mumbled sourly. "My life is pure hell."

She seemed oblivious to his discomfort. "Wow, this is really cool." She giggled, staring at the tiny amount of empty space between her face and Ryoga's. "There's this little glittering web joining us together! And-" She noticed his look of bafflement. "Well, I guess you can't see it. But I see it! It's all silvery and shining, and it's connecting us! And there's these little tiny streams of some kind of liquid passing through the web, coming from you to me! Ryoga, I think these are your thoughts!"

He had a dark look on his face. "I'm glad you're getting so much enjoyment from this."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, shocked. "Jeez, stop the hate, sugar! Wow, you're really pissed off at me. Hey, do you think if I force some good thoughts about me back through the web towards you, maybe you'll be less mad?" She frowned and began to think nice things about herself. "Oh, look! Now there's some thought liquid going back towards you, too! So, what do you think? Are you suddenly overwhelmed by thoughts of how awesome I am?"

He scowled. "Stop it! Stop it!" He shook his head. "Aaaugh! This is like some kind of twisted...twisted...er..." A light seemed to come on in his eyes. "Wow...you really are an amazing person, Ukyou..."

She giggled girlishly. "Aren't I, though? Here wait, let me see if I can make you think this..."

Ryoga watched her with renewed admiration. "I can't believe how agonized you were over Ranma and his father stealing your okonomiyaki cart. Oh god, and your father passed away just six months later, that's horrible, Ukyou!" He closed his eyes, as her thoughts and memories slowly filtered through his mind. _Dressing like a boy because her fiance dumped her, _he thought. _She must have a really strong will to have made it through all that..._ Then he stopped that line of reasoning dead in its tracks. _Wait, but that's no tragedy compared to the hell I had to endure at Jusenkyo!_

Ukyou's eyes flashed. How dare he assume that his experience at Jusenkyo was in any way comparable to her father's death, and ten years of constant suffering!

Ryoga's lips formed a hard line. One day as a pig was a more horrible form of suffering than anything she'd ever had to endure! How could she make the assumption that...that...

The trickle of memories from her mind suddenly became a torrent, and his eyes widened as her mental anguish from all those years of living as a boy, orphaned, scorned, and dirt poor, came pouring into his mind...

She stared, horrified, as she became suddenly conscious of Ryoga's experiences from the first few weeks he'd endured his curse. She closed her eyes, and remembered being hung upside down in the Jusenkyo Guide's hut, above a boiling pot of water...

_Poor Ryoga..._

_Poor Ukyou..._

They both paused mid-thought, apprehensively inching away from one another.

_Wait...how are you..._

_What?_

_I didn't transmit all that information to you!_

_Huh?_

_I was just trying to...wait, are you still..._

He nodded. _Yeah...I can pretty much see your whole mind..._

_Wow._

_Yeah..._

_This is really weird. Okay, I'm going to close down the mental link now._

_Please do._

A minute passed.

_Taking your sweet time._

_Um...Ryoga?_

He watched her nervously. _Yes...?_

_It's closed._

_Well obviously it's n-_

_You're still reading my mind! _she thought, accusingly.

_Well I can't really help it, okay? And just for the record, I'd like to say that your plan was just as stupid as Pantyhose's._

_Shut up, Ryoga! What do you know?_

_Everything! Absolutely everything! Because I can read your mind!_

_Oh. Right._

Neither of them thought anything for a long moment.

_Well, this is awkward._

_Very._

_I'm not sure I like this._

_I'm sure I DON'T like this._

_Can't you DO something about it?_

_Um...no. That, uh...web of stuff between us was sort of, um, replaced._

_By...?_

_Well, now there's this sort of weird glow between us, and...uh..._

_And what?_

_Well, I sort of have the intuitive feeling that this might just maybe be the special mental psi bond that a Protoss can only form once in his life, as told unto us by the holy wisdom of the Khala, and so this might kinda sorta be a little bit, um, permanent._

_WHAT!_

* * *

Happosai gallivanted down the sidewalk, whistling a merry tune. His grateful protege, the aptly named Pantyhose Tarou, had provided him with a picture of a heart-stoppingly beautiful blonde woman and said that if he'd only show up at the appointed time, she'd gladly become his wife.

Sheer joy blossomed in Happosai's withered, evil little heart, and he danced a happy dance as he thought of the woman's breathtaking visage. _My wife!_ he thought, his eyes wide and his heart glad. _Oh! I will be so happy! I would give up everything in a heartbeat if only that vision of loveliness would be my wife!_

And there he was! Pantyhose Tarou, that wonderful boy that he had had the honor to name!

"Happosai," Tarou grated, watching the old man with frigid eyes. "Nice to see you again."

Happosai danced around Tarou, laughing, holding the picture of the blonde woman over his chest. "Pantyhose, my boy, my boy! It's a joy to gaze upon your face once more!"

Tarou smiled grimly, his eyes glinting as he coldly evaluated the old pervert's glee.

Happosai cackled. "So tell me, tell me! Who is this angel that you've promised to me, my boy?"

He grinned. "All in good time, Happosai. First I want my payment."

Happosai grinned back, wickedly. "Think I'm so gullible, do you? How is it that such a beautiful woman would come to love a shriveled old man such as myself?"

"Perhaps she's just taken note of your charms."

"Perhaps, perhaps." Happosai laughed. "Come clean with me, Pantyhose Tarou! Or you might find that new name is something worse than a nylon undergarment." He smiled up at Tarou from his lofty vantage point of 2 feet, 5 inches. "Perhaps you fancy the name...Tampon Tarou?"

Tarou paled. "Don't you threaten me, Happosai. I'll-"

Happosai inched closer. "How about Douchebag Tarou?"

Tarou inched away, his eyes wide.

Happosai grinned, seeing his attacks draw blood. "Tossed Salad Tarou? Colonoscopy Tarou? Impotence Tarou? Buttsex Tarou?" His eyes gleamed as he watched Tarou stagger backwards, in agony, and he prepared the coup de grace. "Or how about...Tarou the No-Talent Ass Clown?"

Tarou screamed, collapsing to the concrete sidewalk, holding his head in anguish. "You...you wouldn't! You monster!"

Happosai chuckled, and let Tarou's terror run its course. "Now," he said, at length, once Tarou's shaking had mostly subsided. "Tell me exactly how you plan to get this gorgeous woman to marry me."

Tarou stood back up, attempting (and failing) to regain some semblance of dignity. "Magic," he said, his voice still quavering.

"You know magic?" he inquired, raising an eyebrow.

He shook his head violently. "No. No! I don't. But. I have some special water. From Jusenkyo." He bit his lip fiercely, trying to clear the terrible fear that still snaked its tendrils around his fragile soul. "I got ahold of some special Jusenkyo water that will make this woman love you." He stared at Happosai fiercely, setting his jaw. "That's all you need to know."

Happosai considered then, then shrugged, cackling again. "Alright, my boy. I'll trust you, just this once. And I suppose, if you actually come through with this, changing your name, however perfect it may be now, will be a small enough price to pay."

* * *

Herb covered his eyes with his hand, letting out a soft groan.

"Prince Herb?" Mint asked anxiously.

"Is there a problem, your highness?" Gosunkugi asked him, his voice quavering.

"This woman's name is Ranma?" Herb repeated, disbelieving.

Gosunkugi glanced at Tsubasa, who shrugged. "Yes, Ranma," Tsubasa affirmed curtly. "So what?"

Herb stared into the distance, gritting his teeth in frustration. "I...know Ranma."

Tsubasa snorted. "How could you possibly know Ranma? Isn't your Syndicate based in backwoods China somewhere? I'm sure there's more than one person named Ranma in Tokyo, anyway!"

Herb shook his head, closing his eyes. _This isn't happening. _After their last encounter, he'd acquired a grudging respect for the (other) sex-changing martial artist. And Ranma was in actuality a man! He could not wed another man, even if...even if...

He looked down at the woman's picture, and felt his chest constrict. Perhaps Tsubasa was right. Perhaps Ranma was truly a common Japanese name. He realized that he didn't know. _It could be like the name Mint among the Musk, _he reflected. _You can't walk ten steps in Syndicate territory without tripping over five guys named Mint!_

He swallowed as he continued looking at the picture. _It's very easy to make excuses when those excuses allow you to make a woman that looks like that yours..._ He scowled, shutting out that part of his brain angrily. It was a different person named Ranma. No doubt. The Ranma he'd fought looked nothing like this woman, anyway!

"It doesn't matter," he grated harshly, shaking his head again. "As you say, I'm sure it's a different person."

Tsubasa smiled reassuringly. "Surely. Now, er...so we've got two things we need to do here, really."

"Two spells, you mean," Herb said.

"Yes, two spells," she agreed, smiling, the unpleasant gleam coming to her eye again. "One's a love spell. That's straightforward enough, since you've supplied us with the eleven point three million yen to buy the insane list of reagents it requires. The second, ah..." She paused, then went on carefully: "It's just a sort of preparation spell. It's not too big a deal."

Herb smiled back at her. "I have a good sense about magic. You'd better tell me exactly what this second spell of your does."

"It's, uh, a binding spell," Gosunkugi offered, hesitantly.

"A binding spell," Herb repeated. "And what does a binding spell do, and why do we need it for this?"

"It's really just sort of a formality before casting any other spells of this nature," Tsubasa explained glibly. She seemed to be sweating a great deal. "It's...well, what it does is lock a person into their current body form. Of course this isn't really NEEDED here!" she added quickly, smiling. "Sort of an, ah, holdover from the days when people were worried about succubi and shapeshifters and silly stuff like that. We like to, um, err on the side of caution, though, you understand..."

* * *

Mousse stumbled through the streets of Nerima, squinting balefully at the cheerful glare of the sun. He'd been changed back into normal form while he was unconscious after being cold-clocked by that obnoxiously strong half-alien vixen, Ukyou, and had awoken in front of the Cat Cafe.

_There is truly no fate worse than awakening to Cologne's vengeance, _he reflected bitterly, leaning heavily on his gnarled walking stick. She had taken out all her frustrations about what had happened on the mountain on his already battered form, and left him in a bloody heap in the alley behind the cafe.

So he walked. In search of a place to stay, something to eat, and maybe a nice tall glass of cool water to wash it down...

He shook his head, grimacing. _No! I must not surrender my soul to the Dark Side again._ Then he looked up again at the hatefully shining sun, and felt his fury rise. _Oh, but the Dark Side of the force is so sweet, and all I need to find it again is just a little bit of nice, cool water, and... No! Damn it! Damn it all!_

He couldn't say for how long he hobbled hopelessly along Nerima's streets, baking silently in the hot sunlight, when he stopped, and looked at the storefront to his right.

"Ukyou's...Okonomiyaki Shack?"

He did a very slow, pained double-take, and gradually convinced himself that this was, indeed, the Ucchan. He thought again of that beautiful, beckoning glass of cold water, and nearly screamed in frustration.

He stumbled through the door to the restaurant, and relished the cool air inside. Maybe Ryoga would be inside, or Ranma, or somebody that he could talk to. Even Ukyou. Anybody. He needed to...needed to...

A twinge of wrongness hit him, and he looked around, the feeling of strangeness momentarily clearing his head. There were no people inside, and the lights were dimmed, and Ukyou was not there.

He leaned on his stick, confused, breathing hard. Where...? He looked at the staircase behind the counter, and, swallowing, hobbled over and began to slowly ascend them, one painful step at a time. More than anything else, he walked up the stairs because he figured maybe Ukyou was up here, maybe she was sick, or was opening late, or something, anything to keep him from succumbing again to the temptations of the Dark Side.

* * *

Ryoga sighed, and stopped struggling against his bonds. They were just too strong. He lay back with a sour grunt. What on earth were the ropes made of, anyway? How was it that a guy who could crush boulders effortlessly with his bare hands couldn't break a few ropes?

He realized it was because he'd become a huge wimp.

_Wait a minute..._ He turned and glared at Ukyou. What the hell did she know?

Oh, right, she knew everything, and he was suddenly possessed of the desire to bow down before her infinite knowledge!

Ukyou, who was, in fact, not actively trying to plant thoughts in Ryoga's mind, was busy fighting off a black depression. What was the purpose of her life, now that her love, her one true love, was finally and irrevocably lost to her? Why did she even go on living if-

She stopped that line of thought, realizing with no small shock that she was thinking of Ryu. Akari. Or maybe Akane. She leaned back, sighing wistfully, falling into a sad daydream that was a weird amalgamation of Akari's tender smile, Ryu's ditzy giggle, and Akane's sweet malleting of a very deserving Ranma...

She shook her head sharply, and stared daggers at Ryoga. He returned her gaze with his own acid stare. What a jerk! No, no, that wasn't right...he was no jerk, she suddenly realized, but one actually one of the strongest, most decent, honorable men that she'd ever had the privilege to meet... No! Those were Ryoga's thoughts, not hers!

They continued to stare at one another, unblinking, both vaguely horrified about their newly minted psionic bond.

Mousse opened the door, and hobbled inside, breathing heavily.

_Oh God,_ Ukyou thought, squirming helplessly in her ropes. _Just when I thought this couldn't get any worse. Where the hell is Konatsu when you really need him?_

Ryoga transmitted a short, bitter laugh to her mentally. _Welcome to my world._

_I don't want anything to do with your world, sugar._

_Well maybe you should have thought of that before you activated your crazy little Kayak-approved pie link, or whatever the hell it was!_

_That's Khala-approved psi link, you jackass! Since you're obviously sitting there combing through my mind, maybe you could have bothered to pick up the right name!_

_Oh, well, I'm so sorry! Maybe if you weren't-_

"Ukyou?" Mousse asked, his voice oddly tremulous. He coughed. "And...Ryoga?"

Ryoga let out a long breath. _Thank God, he's in his normal form for the one time this decade!_

_He looks like he got beaten up pretty bad..._

_Yeah. Wonder who could have been responsible for THAT?_

They looked at each other, chuckling nervously. _Well, he certainly deserved it, _one, or possibly both, of them thought.

"What happened to you guys?" Mousse was asking, kneeling down to cut through Ukyou's bonds with a long knife that he apparently had pulled out of nowhere.

"We were working on our Houdini acts, and got a little carried away," Ukyou told him.

_I'm laughing on the inside, Ukyou,_ Ryoga thought, his 'voice' dripping with sarcasm.

_You know, you're a much bigger jerk when you don't have to speak out loud._

_I'm actually a really nice guy. I'm only a jerk to crazy alien chefs who think invading my mind is fun._

_Hey! I'm only part-alien!_

Ryoga looked at her with sympathy in his eyes, realizing that he'd been too hard on her. Things had been tough for her lately, what with the multiple demolitions of her restaurant, the loss of her beloved Ranma, the change into her strange human-Protoss hybrid form. His heart ached terribly as he thought about it.

_You're doing it again! _he thought, accusingly.

She grinned at him. _I'm sure I don't know what you mean._

Mousse watched the exchanges of facial expressions between the pair with mounting confusion. He sawed laboriously through the final bonds clasping Ukyou's feet together, and she bounced up energetically.

"So...seriously," Mousse grumbled, beginning to cut through Ryoga's bonds. "What happened to you guys?"

"Pantyhose Tarou happened," Ryoga told him flatly.

Mousse nodded. "I hate that guy. But...why'd he tie you guys up?"

Ryoga and Ukyou glanced at each other, exchanging thoughts furiously for a few moments. They came to the conclusion that he was probably at least somewhat trustworthy, as long as they could keep him away from cold water. He was cutting them loose, after all.

"Short version," Ukyou began, stretching gratefully, "is that we were, uh, planning an, um, joint endeavor to, you might say-"

"They were going to ambush Ranma and beat him to a pulp," Ryoga supplied helpfully. "But Tarou, predictably, stabbed Ukyou in the back, since he was only using her to get to Konatsu's supply of Jusenkyo water."

Ukyou favored Ryoga with a quick dirty look, then added, "And he's called Happosai into town."

Mousse looked taken aback. "Happosai...? You don't mean...?"

Ukyou sighed. "Yeah. He's got another can't-possibly-fail scheme worked out to con a new name out of the old pervert."

"What is his plan, exactly?"

She told him. Mousse was silent for a long moment.

"Now, I'm no fan of Ranma's," Mousse admitted, slowly. He clenched his fist. "But...even HE doesn't deserve to be made into that old creep's wife."

Ryoga and Ukyou confirmed quickly that they agreed on this.

"NO ONE deserves to made into that old creep's wife," Ukyou said, shuddering.

Ryoga nodded. "Not even Ranma."

"So I guess..." Mousse trailed off, as if he couldn't believe what he was about to say. "I guess...we're going to go save Ranma, then."

Ukyou grinned wickedly at him, cracking her knuckles. "We'll save him, then celebrate afterwards by pounding him into bits. What do you guys say?"

* * *

Herb knelt down awkwardly in the bushes, hunched under his umbrella, giving the two 'wizards' a resentful glower. "I can't see anything from here!" he hissed. Mint and Lime sat next to him glumly, the rain pelting them.

Tsubasa smiled sweetly at him. "You don't need to see. Just jump out when I shout your name. And make sure you're QUICK about it!" she added, for the third time. "Remember-"

"Yes, the love spell only works once," Herb said impatiently. "I heard you the first two times."

"Master Herb, our suits are going to be ruined!" Mint complained, looking at the mud caked on his black suit from the wet ground. Lime nodded his mournful agreement.

"Shut up," Herb told them curtly, feeling the water slowly creep up his nicely creased pant leg with mounting horror.

"Listen. You have to be the FIRST person she sees!" Tsubasa admonished him. "You need to be FIRST! Right after we cast the spell, I'm going to shove her towards these bushes. All you need to jump up, and once she sees you, she's yours!"

Tsubasa and Gosunkugi disentangled themselves from the bushes surreptitiously, then hurried over through the drizzling rain to the front doors of Furinkan High School. It was only about a fifteen foot run, but Gosunkugi was thoroughly winded by the time they arrived.

"Ranma's...always...late..." Gosunkugi wheezed, bracing himself against the wall once they'd ducked inside the school. "School...starts...in...about 25 minutes." He caught his breath. "So we just wait around, and once the flood of idiots has passed, Ranma should straggle in about 5 minutes later."

Tsubasa nodded, smiling his disquieting little smile. "And you know for a fact that the binding spell works."

Gosunkugi sweated. "Yes. Well...I mean...yes."

His fellow wizard eyed him critically. "Good."

He gave a nervous laugh. "I mean, when I say yes, I mean, well..."

"Spill it, Gos," Tsubasa told him, sighing.

"Okay. I've tested it, but, I mean...I don't really...I mean...there was a nice flash of light and stuff!"

Tsubasa nodded, encouraging. "Right...and the binding spell worked, right?"

Gosunkugi shrugged helplessly. "I don't know! I mean, who was I supposed to test it on? I don't know anyone who has more than one body!"

Tsubasa groaned. "You mean you don't ACTUALLY know if it works."

"Well...no."

"Do you have any idea who these guys are, Gos?" Tsubasa asked him, his voice strained. "This is the Musk crime syndicate! These guys are insane! They came out of literally nowhere in the past year, and control like 75 of the black market activity in Qinghai province already, by some estimates! They're brutal and ruthless as hell, and this guy, their prince or whatever, they say he's the worst of all! I, uh...did some research on the internet about this the other night," he added, sheepishly.

Gosunkugi glared at him darkly. "You might have thought to look all that up before you contacted them, you know."

Tsubasa scowled. "Well, I didn't know you were such an incompetent at casting your binding spell!"

"You didn't even know about that binding spell until AFTER you'd contacted them!"

"Yeah, well...well..." Tsubasa paused. He stared at the ground. "Uh, yeah. So maybe I didn't think this through all that well."

Gosunkugi sweated, peering apprehensively out of the small window in the door to where the Syndicate men were hidden away in the bushes. "Well...maybe we could cancel this?" he said, hopefully. "I mean...do you think we could just walk out?"

Tsubasa stared at him in disbelief. "Walk out? On these guys?" He smiled a slightly manic smile. "Do you have any idea what they'd do to us if they knew we'd blown eleven million of their yen, dragged them all the way to Japan, and then just skipped out at the last moment? Any idea at all? Don't you ever watch The Sopranos?"

Gosunkugi nodded. "Yeah...okay, forget walking out, then..." He paused. "Man, the ending to that show was horrible."

"Tell me about it!" Tsubasa agreed, shaking his head sadly.

They were silent for a moment, then Tsubasa's nerves got the better of him. "So if this binding spell doesn't work," he said, swallowing. "Uh...is there anything else you could try? Any other spells?"

Gosunkugi shook his head, soaking up Tsubasa's nerves and acquiring a look of muted terror. "N...no..."

They stood there for a while, thinking about their impending doom and what fools they were.

"Good luck that it's raining today!" Tsubasa noted.

Gosunkugi nodded eagerly. "Yes, yes! That's a good omen for our success! If Ranma's a girl already when he shows up, this will be much easier!"

Silence.

"Of course," Tsubasa pointed out, "he might have an umbrella."

The feeling of doom returned, and they both stared down the desolate hallway in despair.

25 minutes passed. The horde of imbeciles passed by, and the bell rang. Another four minutes passed, and Gosunkugi's eyes widened as he peered through the little window.

"It's Ranma," he confirmed, daring to smile. "And he's in girl form!"

* * *

Nabiki stared blearily at the computer monitor. She clicked a few times, then clicked some more, then clicked some more.

The bell rang.

She turned and looked out the half-shut blinds of the school's computer lab. "Oh, god," she muttered, watching the light filter in with disbelief. "I promised myself I wouldn't be here all night playing World of Warcraft again..."

_Guys, I gotta go,_ she typed. She rubbed her eyes, realizing for the first time how exhausted she was.

_nooooo don't go sham we're almost to the last boss! _Deathroguezz whined, jumping up and down.

_QQ,_ Bignastykillah added, sobbing pathetically.

She sighed, rubbing her eyes again. She really hated to bail on her team like this, and she was soooo close to hitting level 68, but...

She began to move her character around the screen again, trying to decide what to do, when a brilliant flash of light suffused everything around her.

* * *

Ranma stumbled backwards, nearly losing her footing on the wet concrete. _What the hell was that? _she wondered, trying fruitlessly to clear her vision from the blinding light.

Gosunkugi and Tsubasa burst through the school's front doors, chanting.

"Look, whoever you are," she grunted, beginning to stumble forward blindly, "not today, okay? I'm already late!"

Their chanting stopped, and Ranma felt an odd twinge in her chest.

She looked around, confused and still completely blind.

* * *

"Prince Herb!" Tsubasa shouted, charging at Ranma and knocking her towards the bushes where the prince was hidden. "Now!"

Herb burst out, in female form from her waterlogged pants, halfway blinded by the flash herself. "I'm here!" she shouted, staggering towards the school's entrance. "Ranma! My love!"

Ranma looked around, her confusion mounting. She let loose a frustrated scream as she lost her footing in the muddy grass. "What the hell is going on?"

Herb knelt before Ranma, her vision slowly clearing. There were tears of joy in her eyes as she beheld the perfect beauty of the girl before her. "Do you..." She swallowed, her voice choking up. "Do you truly love me?" she asked Ranma, plaintively.

Mint and Lime slowly crept out of the bushes, then fell to their knees in awe, staring at Ranma.

Ranma blinked several times, still unable to see past the end of her own nose. "Prince Herb?" she repeated, confused. "As in...Musk Dynasty Herb?"

Herb stared at her for a moment, then turned towards Tsubasa and Gosunkugi angrily. "She's blind from your stupid spell, you morons!" The two of them stood there stupidly, gaping both at Herb's unexpected sex change and, of course, at Ranma. Herb snarled, "Well, do something!"

Gosunkugi turned to Tsubasa and shrugged.

Tsubasa turned to Gosunkugi and shrugged.

"Look at me, my princess!" Herb whispered desperately, latching onto Ranma's head and staring into her eyes. "I beg you!"

Ranma growled and lashed out blindly, punching the Musk prince firmly in the nose, sending her tumbling unceremoniously back through the mud.

Tsubasa narrowed his eyes. "Hey, Gos...do you...hear that?"

Gosunkugi concentrated, and heard the sound of very heavy footsteps approaching from behind them, along with muffled shouts of alarm. "Hear what? What is..."

Tsubasa turned around, his eyes suddenly very wide. "Oh, god."

Gosunkugi also turned around, becoming even paler than usual. Charging directly at them from inside the school was what appeared to be a ten-foot-tall bipedal cow in a suit of magic armor, brandishing an enormous two-handed mace. Screaming in terror, the two wizards leapt out into the rain, scrambling away from the giant cow's mad dash.

The armored cow landed with an earth-shattering thud behind Ranma, waving its giant mace overhead in one huge, meaty hand. It let loose a tremendous roar. By this point, a good 60 of the school's students were gathered around the school's windows, cheering as they watched the chaos unfold.

Ranma's vision finally cleared, and she looked up at the monster with horror.

Then with love.

Ranma began to back away, her eyes wide, not believing the feelings that were overwhelming her completely. "Wh...wha...what's going on...why do I feel so..."

The cow bent over, looking down at Ranma with concern. "You alright, Ranma?" it asked, in a vaguely familiar, highly sarcastic tone that did not suit its monstrous appearance at all.

Ranma's face flushed, and she fell to her knees before the beast. "I...I..."

Herb had regained her footing, and wiped the mud from her fine-featured face as watched the monster. Her battle-aura began to glow fiercely. "What the hell are you?" she demanded, her face a mask of fury.

The giant cow shrugged. "Oh, hi, my name's Nabiki Tendo," it said, smiling with faint embarrassment. "Pleasure to meet you!"


	11. Ranma Dies Horribly

Part 11: Ranma Dies Horribly

Shutaro Watanabe, the manager of the Nerima McDonald's, was a man who aspired to experience the finer things in life. He was the guy who always stayed abreast of the latest fashions, had the hottest cars, ate at the finest restaurants, and only dated the hottest girls. He went to the most fashionable parties and had possibly the world's most superficial set of friends.

He accomplished all of this with a clever campaign to conceal the fact that he was a McDonald's manager from the world, as well as massive credit card debt. Shutaro was on the fast-track to bankruptcy, and he knew it. And when he got there, he was terrified that his hot new girlfriend would dump him, his true mediocrity would be revealed to the world, and, worst of all, that he might lose his standing invitation to all of Tokyo's most posh clubs!

He knew the only way that he would avoid this horrid fate was if he got that promotion to district manager. The guys over at corporate were being pretty secretive about the whole process, but he was good at keeping his ear to the ground, and he knew in his heart that if he just got through the next three days without screwing anything up, he was going to get it. And then all his problems would be solved!

He surveyed his domain apprehensively, alert for any signs of trouble. The number one cause of property damage in this part of Tokyo, he knew, was psychotic martial arts masters. He'd always figured that if he was careful, and alert about keeping the peace in his restaurant, then he wouldn't need that absurdly expensive 'martial arts-related property damage' insurance all the local agents were enthusiastically hawking.

Because of his long expertise at keeping a lookout for potential disasters, his eye was drawn to a depressed-looking young woman in the back of the McDonald's, dressed, slightly alarmingly, in a ninja suit. Her face was concealed by her long blonde hair, and she poked at her Big Mac and fries disspiritedly.

He sidled over to her table, trying to conceal the alarm on his face. "Um, hi," he greeted her, tentatively.

She didn't look up. She radiated unhappiness. Her face was still mostly hidden by the fall of her hair, but he couldn't help but notice that, from what little he could make out, she was quite pretty.

He coughed. "Hey there!" he tried again, attempting to substitute a pleasantly false cheer for his nervousness.

She sighed, pushing her long hair back from her face and looking up at him. "What do you want?" she asked, testily.

Shutaro looked into her eyes and felt his heart stop. His fists clenched involuntarily, and he braced himself against a nearby table to keep from falling. _This was... _He watched her, trying to convince himself that he wasn't dreaming. This was the reason that he lived! This was the...the most beautiful, most perfect, most sublimely gorgeous woman that he had never seen, no, that ANYONE had ever seen! That ever COULD be seen! Helen of Troy was less than nothing beside this woman's angelic visage! Tears began running down his face as he tried to regain his composure. _I will...no, I MUST make her mine!_

A minute later, when he hadn't responded, she shrugged and went back to staring at her, by now, cold and nasty pile of french fries.

He steeled himself, and tried to sound as suave as possible. "What...is...what is your...!"

She sighed again. She wore a resigned expression. "My name's Konatsu," she said, looking him directly in the eye. "I am not interested in men."

"ListenIwaswonderingifmaybeyou'...a..." he trailed off, as her words sunk in. He felt his world shatter around him, and he fell to his knees in despair. "No...no!" he wailed, groveling before her. "It's a lie! Of all the terrible injustices in this world, you, you of all women, cannot be a lesbian!"

She ate a fry, staring at him icily. Now that her face was fully visible, two other men came wandering up to her, in sort of a daze, staring at her with stars in their eyes. A third guy in his mid-fifties walked in with a woman who was obviously his wife, caught side of her, and slowly began to drift her way as well. His wife had her hands on her hips in disgust.

"Hey, how you doin'?" one of the newcomers asked her, grinning stupidly.

"Hey there, babe," a second guy, this one an unshaven, burly guy in a leather jacket, said, a cocky smile on his face.

A fourth guy, this one dressed in a kendoist's traditional uniform, appeared beside her.

She shied away from the attention. "Look, I don't mean to be rude, but-"

"And to think," the fourth guy interrupted her imperiously, looking at her the way a cat looks at a mouse in a mousetrap, "that only a moment ago I, Tatewaki Kuno, the handsome, dashing, and unrivalled kendo champion of Furinkan High, had walked through this world, ignorant of this astonishing beauty now before mine eyes!" He produced a bouquet of roses from nowhere, picking the slender blonde ninja up from her seat ceremoniously and looking deeply into her eyes. "O, the sun itself doth quail before your shining golden loveliness!" he declared, clasping her hands tenderly. "And if the softly glowing dawn did-"

"I like girls," she said.

Kuno was taken aback. His mouth worked furiously for a few moments before further words would come out. "But it cannot be! Such pure beauty truly-"

"It's true," she added, before he could wax poetic again.

Kuno glomped her, along with the other three guys that had accidentally caught sight of her unearthly beauty. Shutaro began to do the same, when suddenly, his fear overcame his infatuation, and in a terrible moment of clarity, he knew what was about to happen.

Konatsu screamed like a banshee. "GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" she roared, sending her would-be suitors flying across the McDonald's. She drew her sword, furious.

Kuno pulled himself out of the ruins of the drink machine. An ice-cold jet of Dr. Pepper drenched him, immediately transforming him into a nine-foot-tall alien monster. He laughed, waving his (now ridiculously tiny) bokken before him. "EN TARO TASSADAR!" he boomed, his eyes glowing. "Very well then! If you should prevail against the mighty Blue Thunder, I shall permit you to DATE WITH ME!"

The married guy brushed the smashed glass from the front window off of himself and began to charge at her, his eyes alight with love. "BUT SUGAR TITS, I LOOOOOVE YOUUUUUU!"

Shutaro began to weep softly as the annihilation of his McDonald's began.

* * *

Ryu the Pink-Haired Valley Girl had a long-standing phobia to hot water. Possibly because she had the attention span of a ferret on speed, she wasn't completely aware of why, exactly, she was so afraid of hot water, but she was very careful to only bathe and wash her hands in ice-cold water.

She had awoken late that morning, long after her boy toy of the week, Shutaro, had gone off to work. She was a bit hung over and grouchy from their till-the-break-of-dawn excursion to some of Tokyo's swankest clubs the previous night, and stumbled into Shutaro's bathroom, yawning.

She was so absorbed in looking at her reflection in the mirror that she, completely by accident, she hit the hot water knob instead of the cold.

A smart person, upon making an error like this, would immediately suspect the temperature of the water to be wrong from any number of little things, not least the steam pouring off of the nearly boiling water streaming from the showerhead.

Ryu the Valley Girl was not, needless to say, such a smart person.

_Like, oh my GAWD, _she thought, winking at her own reflection and giggling vacantly as she stepped into the shower, _like my hair is like so totally like messed UP right now, and like I totallll-HOLY FUCK THAT'S HOT!_

Ryu stood in the scalding jet of water, his eyes glazed over.

He reflected, slowly, deliberately, on what exactly he'd been doing for the past week or so, then, just as slowly, reached over and turned off the burning stream of water. He thoughtfully crushed the knob with one twist of his hand.

He fell to his knees, breathing heavily. His fists clenched and unclenched spasmically. His eyes were wide with a fury like the world had never seen.

"Shutaro Watanabe," he whispered, gathering his ki in his hands, "because of you...I HAVE SEEN HELL!" He stood up, in a blind rage, ready to charge after that worthless posturing fool Shutaro and crush him into a thousand piecess, when the water pressure broke through the knob that he'd shattered and bathed his body in freezing cold water.

Ryu the Gangsta scowled, stepping out of the shower. It was _cold_ in this mutha! "Dammmn," he growled, towling himself off daintily. He shivered. "It's cold as a MUTHA FUCKA in here!" He slicked his (still bright pink) hair back, grinning, then exited the bathroom, stealing some of that worthless posturing fool Shutaro's very stylish clothes, looting the house safe, then setting the whole mutha fuckin place on fire. He figured it was bout time to hit up the pawn shop for a gat or three, then blast that mutha fucka Shutaro right in his mutha fuckin face.

* * *

After a fleeting moment of horror and confusion, Nabiki had realized what had happened to her. She'd stood up in the cramped computer lab (well, cramped when you're ten feet tall and muscled like an ox...literally), and looked down at her massive body, tears running down her face.

_There is a God! _she thought, clenching her enormous fists, her heart aglow with happiness. _How many nights did I sit at that computer screen, wishing that I was Shamalicious...and now, suddenly, my wish has become reality! Oh, happy day!_

She'd enjoyed the hell out of bellowing like a maniac and charging down the hall like the beast she was, waving around her giant two-handed mace, the Oathkeeper.

Now she was standing in the rain, and there was a not-quite-human-looking woman standing there staring at her with a look of total rage in her eyes.

"Nabiki Tendo?" Tsubasa repeated, shocked.

Gosunkugi paled even more, if that was possible. "Na...Nabiki Tendo...?" He looked down at his hands in horror. "Dear God, what have I done?"

She gave a loud laugh, towering over them all happily. "It's me, alright!" she said, grinning. Her voice sounded like stone breaking. "Take a good look!"

"Nabiki..." Ranma said slowly, staring at her with wide eyes. She wore a beatific smile. "Oh, Nabiki, I love you so much!"

Now that was...unexpected. Nabiki looked down at the beautiful blonde woman in puzzlement, then turned back towards Herb, who was fuming silently. The air around her entire body was shimmering with ki energy so fierce it nearly glowed.

Ranma turned to Herb, scowling. "Leave my Nabiki alone, Herb, or you'll get more of what you got last time!"

Tears began to fall from Herb's eyes, and she gathered more and more energy in her hands. "GOD DAMN YOU TO HELL, NABIKI TENDO!" she raged, her eyes beginning to glow with power.

Nabiki ordinarily would have been terrified by this situation, but she found, oddly, that some of Shamalicious's battle-savvy had diffused into her mind, and she watched Herb charge up a massive ki blast, bemused. _So in the game, _she considered thoughtfully, _I can use an earth shock spell to interrupt abilities that need to be charged up. I wonder if that'll work here? How the hell do I cast an earth shock in real life, anyway?_

Herb tensed her body, readying the deathblow.

Oh, right. She'd been casting earth shocks all her life! _Like THIS!_ She gestured towards Herb, and Herb gasped as the incandescent green energy of the shock ripped through her, dissipating her gathered ki in an instant.

Nabiki watched Herb stagger slightly, in obvious pain from the earth shock and seemingly unable to gather her battle aura. _If I remember correctly, _Nabiki reflected, roaring (mostly for show) and charging directly at the (comparatively) diminutive Herb, _I have, what, two seconds before she can try that again?_

Herb looked up at the charging monster, completely lost without her ki abilities. Fear blossomed in her eyes as she realized that she had absolutely no counters ready really needed to get the hell out of the way before-

_One, _Nabiki thought, grinning with bloodlust.

The Oathkeeper landed a savage blow to Herb's left shoulder as she tried to jump away. Herb gasped, the immense force of the blow twirling her around like a top. She began to scream as the monster before her raised its enormous mace again-

_Two._

And then she found her ki. Herb floated up into the air, the air around her crackling with charged ki, cleanly dodging Nabiki's vicious attack. Nabiki looked straight at Herb, confused, as she swooped down in a long arc around Nabiki's side. Nabiki tried to twist away, feeling immense pain explode through her ribcage.

Herb smiled unpleasantly, floating up into the air again as Nabiki roared and rushed forward. She drifted almost casually across Nabiki's unguarded flank, the air warping and shimmering around her. Nabiki gasped, and knelt in the muddy ground, a trickle of blood running from her mouth, then suddenly dropped flat on the ground as Ranma vaulted over her, howling for blood.

Mint and Lime were both standing off to Ranma's side, and, finally sensing that their prince was danger, managed to shake themselves out of their insanely-hot-blonde-induced stupor. Well, Mint did, anyway. Lime sort of stumbled in their general direction, his eyes firmly fixed on Ranma's now quite clingy and wet shirt. He was openly drooling.

"Master Herb!" Mint shouted, moving almost too fast to be seen, drawing his broadsword with a practiced grace. He blindsided Ranma in mid-air. Ranma twisted, her fist raised, ready to strike, and barely avoided the blade's razor-sharp edge. It nicked her soaked blonde hair. Mint grimaced, nearing panic as he tried not to respond to the astonishingly beautiful woman before him.

Ranma hit him. Mint flinched away from the strike, and, moving on instinct, swung his sword in a vicious arc at her head as they tumbled through the rain. Ranma's face took on a vague look of shock when Mint's sword buried itself deeply into her left temple.

They landed in the mud, and didn't move.

Mint stared at her beautiful face, his hands suddenly shaking. He blinked, and jerked his sword away. Its edge was dark with blood and bone. He could hear himself breathing. He was breathing very loudly, he realized, disoriented, his feet sliding in the muddy ground as he tried to back away from Ranma's twitching body. He realized, in an odd, somehow disconnected moment, that he was sobbing.

Nabiki stared. "Ranma..."

Herb rushed to Ranma's prone body, all thoughts of her opponent forgotten. Ranma gave a short, sharp gasp as Herb's face blurred into view, through the sheet of rain.

_Prince...Herb?_ Ranma thought, confused.

She blinked once, to clear the rain from her eyes, then again. Then again. Her hand rested lightly on the blade of Mint's gracefully curved broadsword, where the brown mud washed over the red of her blood. She was in terrible pain, she knew, but it was somehow abstract, as if the pain was affecting someone else.

Her eyes began to lose focus as she looked up. The sky looked dark...why was it so dark?

Herb knelt, staring, her face expressionless. "Ranma?"

About a minute passed, the only sounds the patter of the falling rain and Mint's shrill, wracking sobs. Students slowly began to gather around the small group, their eyes fixed on Ranma's unmoving form. Lime had his giant hand comfortingly on Mint's small shoulder, but he backed away, uncertain, as Herb slowly rose to her feet.

"Master Herb," Lime said, haltingly, "he was only protecting you, he-"

Herb silenced him with a look. "Protecting me," she repeated, softly. A hideous growl came from her throat. "HE KILLED HER!"

Mint didn't even look up from his intense weeping as Herb loosed a monstrous ki blast at him, sending him and two students unfortunate enough to be behind him smashing through the cement wall of the high school. Mint had an extremely tough constitution, a combination of a lifetime of hard training and his wolf blood. The two young men behind him were not so lucky. The smaller of the two had begun to scream, his leg shattered by the force of the impact. The other had hit the wall head-first, and was dead before he hit the ground.

Hiroshi was the first to notice the dead guy. "Holy shit," he said, pointing, and suddenly the other students were shoving and shouting, fleeing the schoolyard as fast as they could run.

Herb paid the two students no mind, striding calmly up to Mint's prone body. There was a strange flatness in her eyes as her ki gathered around her slender hands.

"F...fuck you!" the student with the shattered leg wailed, vainly attempting to crawl away from the enraged prince. "FUCK YOU!"

Herb's mouth twisted distatefully, and she took her eyes off Mint for a moment to loose a rippling blast of energy at the student, tearing him nearly in half. She stood above Mint, shaking her head.

Nabiki tore herself away from the horror of Ranma's dead body, realizing suddenly that Herb had just murdered two students. She saw her standing above the boy who had killed Ranma, her hand upraised for the killing blow...

"Master Herb!" Lime was shouting, beginning to run towards them. "Mint was trying to protect you!"

Herb turned her head slightly to respond, and was taken completely by surprise as Nabiki fired a bolt of lightning that hit her square in the chest. She'd fought other ki-using martial artists before, and had seen many ki attacks that looked like lightning, so she instinctively tried to disperse the attack with her own ki. It occurred to her, slightly too late, that this was _actual_ lightning, and she collapsed, screaming, the electricity coursing through her body.

Nabiki stepped forward, her ornate chain mail armor clanking as she moved, the lightning beginning to gather in her massive hand again. The students had all fled, leaving the three of them alone with the corpses of two schoolboys and one heartbreakingly beautiful girl.

Herb staggered to her feet, and felt her ki suddenly dispersed by a violent shock of crackling green energy. She stumbled backwards, nearly falling as she stepped through the ruins of the school's outer wall. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.

_That wasn't a ki attack, either,_ she realized, her mind spinning desperately. She stood, expressionless, and watched with a kind of detached horror as the blue-white tendrils crackled and danced around the monster's enormous hand.

_My ki is gone,_ she thought, strangely calm. _I am the dragon's blood, but my ki is gone..._

She was ready for the second bolt, and tried to dodge it, but was completely unsuccessful, since actual lightning, it turned out, moved really, really fast. She slowly dragged herself back to her feet, gasping, and Lime stepped in front of her, his face twisted into a scowl.

Nabiki stopped, watching the two of them. "My next lightning bolt will be much more powerful," she rumbled, ponderously, the rain pounding on her chain mail armor. Her voice was deep and resonant. "It will hit you, then jump to your boss. You might live." She paused, looking at the raggedly breathing Herb, then spoke with conviction: "But she won't."

Lime tensed for the attack, but Herb's voice sounded first. "I surrender," she said, loudly, clearly.

Lime half-turned, shocked. "Master Herb...?"

Herb turned to Mint's still weeping form, her face twisting with fury. "It seems I can't kill you, then," she hissed. "Mint. For destroying the love of my life, you are banished from the Musk lands, forever, on pain of death."

Mint looked up, only vaguely aware of what was going on. "What...what, ba...banished?" he repeated, uncomprehending. "Where...should I go, Master Herb?"

"Lime!" Herb growled, ignoring him. "We're leaving."

Nabiki watched the two of them disappear into the rain, her heart in her throat. She stole a glance at the clock on the school's wall. There should still be time. Should. If this worked the way it did in the game. Which was a pretty big 'if,' now that she stopped and thought about it.

She turned and lumbered towards Ranma's lifeless body, her mind automatically running through the complex mental ritual the spell required. Ranma's hair looked strange, the bright gold running together with the brown and red of the blood-stained earth. _It's like half-mixed paint..._

Tsubasa tiptoed out into the rain, alone. Gosunkugi had long since fled. "They're dead," he whispered, quietly. "They're really dead..."

Nabiki shrugged. "Looks that way, yep." Her hands began to glow a radiant green.

Tsubasa didn't know what to say to that, so he crept over to Ranma's corpse, examining it with morbid fascination. He'd never seen a dead body before. "Man, this is weird," he muttered under his breath, staring. "Look at her face..." _Is this what happens when someone dies...?_ There was a subtle, but perceptible change in her features. He'd read somewhere that a person's muscles all relaxed when they died. But it almost looked like her bone structure was...shifting...

He gingerly touched a lock of her blonde hair, and realized that it had changed to a red too bright to just be from the muck in which she lay... He looked down at Ranma's skin. It was pale, unnaturally pale, and now that he looked at it was sort of a green, actually really bright green, holy shit what was the bright light suffusing them...!

Tsubasa jumped away, yelping and reciting a prayer involuntarily.

Ranma yawned and stood up, apparently in quite good health.

"EEEEEEEEEEK!" Tsubasa wailed, crawling back through the mud. "Wha...wha...how did you..."

"Ancestral Spirit," Nabiki said authoritatively. "Just a resurrection spell! Only works if they've been dead 10 minutes or less." She grinned toothily at Ranma. "Good thing you didn't release, huh, Ranma?"

"Uh...release?" Ranma blinked, confused. "What's goin' on?" She stumbled over to Nabiki, stars in her eyes. "Nabiki, my love," she mumbled, a happy smile on her face. "Come here!"

Nabiki cast a slightly disturbed look at the disoriented girl, but didn't allow it to disrupt her second Ancestral Spirit spell. Shortly, the two dismembered students were standing around, in full health, yawning and wondering aloud what had caused all the destruction.

Mint stared forlornly at her, then seemed to realize all at once that the woman he'd killed was miraculously alive again. "You...you're alive!" he said, then gave a joyous cheer as he launched himself at the still quite confused Ranma. He glomped onto her, weeping happily. "You're alive! You're alive! Oh, I'm so happy! You're so beautiful, and you're alive! I was so scared that I'd killed you!"

"You did kill her," Nabiki boomed at him informatively. "But I can rez, so it's no big deal. Still, don't do it again, please."

"'Rez'?" Mint repeated, confused.

Ranma was less annoyed than usual about being glomped, partially because she had just recently returned from the dead, partially because Mint couldn't have been older than 12 years old, and partially because she was completely focused on her intense love for Nabiki to the point of not even noticing him. Still, after a moment, she pried him off and set him bodily on the ground.

Mint looked up at her, puzzled. "Why aren't you as pretty as before?" he inquired, innocently.

"Dying horribly will do that to you," Ranma said testily, brushing a lock of sodden, mud-caked red hair out of her eyes. _Wait...red? _Her eyes were wide as she tugged on her hair, crossing her eyes to get a good look at it.

"Not a fan of the redheads?" Nabiki asked, amused. "Dying dispels all curses and harmful magic effects, of course. That's why he's back to normal!"

Ranma thought about that. She was still a little dazed. "Back...to normal?" she repeated, groggily. "Um...why am I still a girl, then?" She paused, frowning. "Also, I'm still intensely in love with you, which is really kind of horrible since you're a giant cow monster or something." She paused. "Why are you a giant cow monster, anyway?"

"Oh, this is just my World of Warcraft character!" Nabiki told her cheerfully. Her face grew thoughtful. "It's odd that you're still in love with me. And female. Dying is supposed to dispel all curses and harmful magic effects!"

Ranma stared at her, baffled.

Nabiki shrugged. "Must be a bug, I guess!" Nothing in Shamalicious's vast encyclopedia of magical knowledge could have prepared her for buggy game mechanics! _Stupid Blizz,_ she thought balefully.

Ranma clenched her fist. "Or maybe this isn't your stupid game, Nabiki!"

"Hey," Nabiki replied defensively, "cut me some slack here. I brought you back from the dead, didn't I?"

"Uh...yeah." Ranma chuckled nervously. "Thanks for that. By the way, you, uh, er, I was wondering, I mean, if you're not doin' anything, would you feel like, y'know, maybe, this weekend we could-"

"Absolutely not," Nabiki interrupted her. She pointed an accusing finger at the now only-moderately-beautiful girl. "Ranma! You're engaged to my sister! You should be ashamed of yourself." She briefly admired her reflection in one of the nearby classroom windows. "Although I am quite the studmonster!" She flexed, then turned back to Ranma, scowling. "But, let's face it...I mean, you're just not that hot anymore."

Ranma looked at her own reflection, horror rising to the surface as she saw her old, only-moderately-beautiful redheaded face staring back at her. She clenched her fist in a fit of sudden, terrible rage. _No...no! How can this be happening? What giant cow monster could ever love me now? Life isn't even worth living like this, I hate the whole world...I..._ She paused. _Wait...what am I thinking?_

Suddenly, Mint's intense depression returned. "Master Herb...Master Herb banished me," he whispered, sitting down in the mud. "And the girl wasn't even that hot after all."

Ranma growled. "Hey..."

Several of the braver students had returned to the schoolyard, and began to crowd around them, now that the carnage and death appeared to have been put on hold. Hiroshi and Daisuke were cheerfully pounding Ranma on the back, laughing at her (and staring at her chest).

"You were out cold there, buddy!" Daisuke told her, grinning.

"Yeah," Hiroshi said, jostling her ribs (and subtly copping a feel) teasingly, "we were worried you might be dead or something!"

Ranma smirked, punching Hiroshi in the face for copping a feel. "Feh. Me? Dead? You guys don't know me very well."

Hiroshi rubbed his head, then stared at her for a long moment. "What happened to your hair?" he asked, frowning.

Daisuke gave Ranma the up-and-down-and-up-and-down. "You...you're back to regular old only-moderately-hot Ranma!" he said, dismayed, his finger pointed accusingly at her (really very attractive, by ordinary standards) face.

"Go die in a fire, Daisuke," Ranma said, a plastic smile on her face. Her left eye twitched.

* * *

Tarou and Happosai gallivanted down the sidewalk together, Tarou fantasizing about his sweet, sweet revenge on the evil Ranma Saotome and the joy he would feel when he was awarded his new name, and Happosai just fantasizing (unknowingly) about Ranma Saotome.

"I'm hungry," Happosai whined.

Tarou scowled. "Is it food you want, old man? Or do you want this vision of loveliness-"

"I'm HUNGRY!" Happosai whined.

Tarou sighed. "Look-"

"I'm HUNGRY!"

"I didn't catch that," Tarou said testily, his intense hatred of the evil old letcher boiling to the surface, "wait, are you hungry? Say it again, a little louder this time."

Happosai smirked at him. "What, you can't afford to buy a deluxe sushi dinner for a poor old man? Perhaps you don't need a new name so badly after all, my boy..." He trailed off, whistling innocently.

"Deluxe sushi dinner," Tarou repeated, snorting back laughter. "Do I look like I can afford a deluxe sushi dinner to you, old man? If I could afford that, maybe I'd buy myself a real belt first that wasn't made out of pantyhose, do you think?"

Happosai stared at him resentfully. And then, to their left, the cheerful golden arches of the Nerima McDonald's loomed through the neatly groomed trees along the road.

Happosai jumped on top of his enraged companion's head. "Alright then, buy me a cheeseburger, you ungrateful wretch!"

Tarou clenched and unclenched his fists spasmically. "You...you..." He took a few deep breaths, unwilling to put his grand scheme in jeopardy over a lousy cheeseburger. "Alright. Fine. I'll buy you a cheeseburger. But after that, we're going straight to Ranma's high school, alright?"

"Fine, fine!" Happosai agreed happily, whistling and bounding swiftly into the generic little restaurant.

Five minutes later, he was still standing in line, getting angrier by the second. Happosai jumping up and down on his head impatiently may have had something to do with that.

Why the hell were there so many people in this worthless little McDonald's, anyway? He hated Nerima, and everyone in it. When he took over the world, he was going to nuke the whole damn city. Bunch of degenerate weirdos. God, and was there anything worse than a public place on a rainy day? And who the hell was the person in the ninja getup with bright blond hair? Like a ninja would be a blonde! Nonsense. _Feh. Idiots._

"Would you stop that?" Tarou hissed, trying to bap Happosai but succeeding only in punching himself in the face. "Stop it, you old fool!"

"I'm hungry, I'm hungry!" Happosai whined. He turned to watch several desperate-looking jerks hit on a blonde woman in a ninja suit.

They had almost reached the front of the line when a brawl erupted around the blonde ninja. Gritting his teeth and shoving some doddering old fool out of his way, Tarou stepped to the counter.

"HELLO," he shouted, trying to be heard over the cries of rage and agony coming from the vicinity of the ninja girl, who appeared to be locked in mortal combat with a nine-foot-tall alien wielding a wooden sword. "I'D LIKE TO ORDER A CHEESEBURGER, PLEASE." There was a small explosion nearby. "TO GO," he clarified, but the worthless cashier fled like a coward before completing the transaction!

"I think we should leave," Tarou suggested lightly, watching a flabby middle-aged man sail across the McDonald's, through the front of the restaurant, and out onto the sidewalk, and then realized with dismay that Happosai had already joined the brawl, apparently trying his damnedest to get a free grope out of this.

Tarou watched the blonde ninja suspiciously. Where had he seen her before...? It was hard to get a good look at her. He tried to analyze her face as the alien warrior hurled her through a (different) window, sending her reeling out into the parking lot.

His curiosity piqued, he ducked through the escalating brawl, which now seemed to have no less than two dozen participants trying to kill each other, and jogged into the parking lot.

His heart skipped a beat when he saw her (somewhat battered) face, taking a mental snapshot of her standing there, astonishingly lovely, standing in the rain, in a terrible fury, a sword in her hand...

"You...!" he whispered, staring.

A slender woman in a slightly-too-large suit, accompanied by a large man in a slightly-too-small suit, staggered into view. Her suit was scorched and completely soaked through, and she was wobbling and limping badly. She looked enraged, but as she caught sight of the blonde ninja, a light dawned in her eyes.

"R...Ranma!" the strange woman gasped, a strangled gurgle of joy escaping her exhausted lips. "RANMA!" She began to hobble more quickly towards the ninja, her arms outstretched. "MY PRINCESS! OH, I'M SO HAPPY YOU'RE ALIVE, I-"

The nine-foot-tall alien warrior landed between them, creating a small crater in the asphalt. Its eyes burned, fixed on the burly guy in the small suit. "And who are you, to be so friendly with my fair goddess of war?" it boomed, its alien voice bright with righteous fury.

The guy seemed taken aback. "Uh, me? I, uh..."

He didn't quite look human, either, Tarou noticed, with some trepidation. Tarou also realized that he was standing precisely in the center of a little circle formed by the ninja, the alien, and the two crazy people in business suits. He began to inch away, nervously.

Fifteen ne'er-do-wells from the McDonald's stumbled out into the parking lot, having realized that the object of their affection was in danger of escaping them. "There she is!" one particularly desperate-looking loser rasped, drooling on himself. He was wearing a tag that said "Manager" on it.

A sleazy-looking guy in aviator sunglasses wearing a very snazzy suit stepped out of a very expensive looking Mercedes. His hair was bright pink, and he had an uzi in each hand. "SHUTARO WATANABE!" he bellowed, aiming both uzis at the McDonald's Manager. "I'MA BLAST YOU, MUTHA FUCKA!"

The monster charged. "I WILL SMITE THEE!"

"Kill the monster!" the Manager roared, and the small army of idiots dashed into the fray, screaming incoherently about blood and beautiful blonde ninjas.

The strange woman howled with rage, loosing a tremendous ki blast at the alien warrior. "YOU'LL NOT STAND BETWEEN ME AND MY RANMA!"

Happosai cheered, tossing one of his trademarked Happo-fire-burst grenades into the fray, and Tarou cursed as he was, quite unwillingly, dragged into the stupidest of stupid brawls in recent Nerima history.

* * *

Author's note: Well, at this rate, I should have this story finished by the end of the century, easy! As always, C&C appreciated.


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